Go to www.LearningLeader.com for the full show notes of The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk.

Eric Jorgenson is the CEO of Scribe Media, the largest Professional Publisher. He’s also the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness and The Anthology of Balaji. His books have sold over 1 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages.

Notes:

• The obsessive genius. Eric likes to invest in founders who have been obsessively trying to solve a problem for years. They are myopically focused on that one thing. They have a depth of expertise in the area where they focus. Eric has developed the skill to get good at recognizing that genius in others and that’s helped him make good investing decisions.
  • He is an investor in dozens of (borderline crazy) deep-tech startups through Rolling Fun. They fund obsessive geniuses building utopian technologies.
• Eric’s first 90+ days as the CEO of Scribe: He spent as much time as possible learning from the current members of the team. Leading with curiosity, asking questions, listening, and leading with trust. Being both trustworthy and willing. You don’t have to earn my trust, you have it.
  • "Flawless on the Fundamentals" - The one phrase Scribe is focused on.
• Your content diet: It's more important than a healthy/wellness/food diet. "If you're taking in bad information, you're becoming a moron." You want high-signal sources of information.
• An audience of 1 - "I wrote that book for myself."
• Bezos - Great compression of ideas and communicating them to the team. Focused on one thing.
• Why write a book with Scribe instead of a traditional publisher... You want 100% ownership of your IP
• We talked in depth about Naval Ravikant and his viral Twitter thread titled, “How to get rich without getting lucky” – Here are some of the tweets from that thread:
  • Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
  • Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.
  • Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth-creation games.
  • Pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people.
  • Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and, above all, integrity.
  • Don't partner with cynics and pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling.
  • Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
  • Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.
• Insane and Pragmatic – Great founders are insane and pragmatic. Yes, both.
• Leverage – How do you build a mountain of levers? (Levers are force multipliers. This is how some people can accomplish 10x, 100x, or 1,000,000x what others can. Leverage can multiply outcomes from your effort, your skill, and your judgment.) “You can make it big without accountability. You can make it big without specific knowledge. But if you don’t have leverage, you’re never going to make real wealth. Leverage is the most important component of the principles I’ve discussed.” - Naval
• Transformation Through Writing: Writing a book can be a transformative process that deeply embeds certain mental models and knowledge.
• Interview Process: Engaging with a skilled interviewer can help clarify ideas, which is particularly valuable for busy executives who wish to author books but lack the time to write them themselves.
• Impact of Books: Books can play unique roles in positioning leaders and sharing knowledge, which is an invaluable tool for personal branding and legacy.
• Learning from Experts: Eric believes that his talent lies in recognizing and synthesizing the genius of others, which he shares through his books and investments.
• Professional Growth: Through interacting with talented individuals and absorbing high-quality content, Eric has developed a nuanced understanding of what drives excellence.

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

Read our book, The Score That Matters https://amzn.to/3Yrxfj8

Notes

• Luck is not real – “Luck is something we conjure in our minds to grapple with the consequences of whatever life may throw our way. Luck is a physiological concept. It’s determined by how we view a situation. Academic studies show that you can become luckier simply by telling yourself that you are lucky.” Pessimists sound smart, but optimists change the world. Believe in yourself. Have agency. Strive to make something happen.
  • "Luck is the flip side of risk. They are mirrored cousins, driven by the same thing: You are one person in a 7 billion player game, and the accidental impact of other people’s actions can be more consequential than your own." - Morgan Housel
• Surround yourself with compounders and fire your boring friends– Being around other ambitious people who are willing to push you will make you better. Strike the balance between being loyal to longtime friends, and doing anything for them, but spending the bulk of your time around people who will push your edges and make you think bigger.
  • Fire your Boring Friends - “If you are optimizing for living an extraordinary” life, you have to fire all the boring friends and find people living extraordinary lives.”
• You don’t get what you don’t ask for. I love the story of Anthony meeting his future wife, Polina, for coffee and asking for the next date for that same night. The answer is NO if you don’t ask. It’s worth the potential rejection because the upside is so great. In this case, they got married and have two children. The people who sustain excellence are not afraid to make the ask.
• Get on the plane -- When in doubt, go see them in person.
• "Experience is a liability when it comes to setting expectations." Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. Not knowing that something is supposed to be hard can be useful.
• Respect other people's time - “When I was playing football in college one of our coaches used to say, “5 minutes early is on time and on time is late.” By respecting other people's time they will realize you are a serious person.
• Childhood is not a crutch — Don't have a victim mindset to use childhood as a crutch for poor behavior. “It’s easy to use your childhood as a crutch instead of seeing it as a chisel.” - Cameron Hanes
• Simplicity signals mastery — Tim Urban is the master at this. As a writer and/or teacher, your writing should make the reader feel smarter, not dumber. Using big complicated words and sentences shows that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
• The world seems to separate itself into two groups - the people who never stop learning and everyone else.
• Document Good Ideas – Ideas run the world. “I created a system that works well for me. I broke everything down into four areas where I could find a good idea. Books, social media, conversations, and audio/video content.
• Advice: "Seek risk. What is the riskiest thing you can do? The greatest returns are on the other side of risk. Run towards the risk."

Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Read our book, The Score That Matters https://amzn.to/48nSff1

Dr. Meg Meeker has spent more than thirty years practicing pediatric and adolescent medicine and counseling teens and parents. Dr. Meeker is a popular speaker and bestselling author of several books, including the national bestseller, STRONG FATHERS, STRONG DAUGHTERS; THE 10 HABITS OF HAPPY MOTHERS; and BOYS SHOULD BE BOYS.

Notes:

• One of the best things fathers can do is raise their daughters’ expectations of life. That will directly affect how your daughter talks, how she dresses, how well she does in school, and even what sports or musical instruments she chooses to play. You can help her set goals, help her define a higher purpose for her life, and as a result, her self-esteem will skyrocket. And it will bring you closer, because she’ll recognize you as a leader and an ally, helping her to chart a better course.
• Don’t post anything about your kids on social media. It makes them think they are your trophy to show off. And be mindful of how you talk about them to others. Do you only focus on their accomplishments? They are listening to what you say about them…
• Be the man you want her to marry – See it, do it, teach it. What are the 5 strongest character qualities you want your children to have? How are you showing that to them every day? You are setting the standard. They are watching carefully. You will create what is quote, “normal,” in their life. Are you living with integrity, working hard, not speaking poorly behind others backs? You are showing them how they should behave. If you were watching yourself from outside your body, would you like what you see? We have to live it every day.
• Your daughter sees you (her dad) as her hero. The smartest, strongest, best person in the world.
• Kids want their dad's approval. "I want attention just for being me, not for performing a sport." "You don't just love them. You love their company."
• Always do good work, but don't boast about it.
• "He believed in me." -- The power of the belief that Meg's dad had in her.
• Teach her Humility - Genuine humility is the starting point for every other virtue. But teaching it is tricky. Your daughter needs to feel unique and important in your eyes. Humility doesn’t make sense unless it’s modeled. To fulfill her potential, your daughter needs to understand who she is, where she comes from, and where she’s going. Humility is seeing ourselves honestly… Self-centeredness is a problem if we base our entire lives around our kids wants and desires.
• Clarify your morals (without apology) – If you want her to live by a code or set of values, you must first live by them. If you don’t want her to lie, then you should never lie. If you don’t want her to use cuss/swear words, then you should not use them. If you don’t want to her to drink, then don’t normalize it in your house. She wants to see conviction and leadership in her father.
• Teach your kids to serve in a soup kitchen. Be in service of others. Gain perspective by seeing how others who are less fortunate than you live.
• Embrace them when they fail.
• The dad plants the default in the minds of their children. What do you want that default behavior to be?
• How to approach your daughter's boyfriends?
  • Shake their hands
  • Be curious, ask questions
  • Invite them over for dinner