The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 620: Steve Magness - Defining Success on Your Terms, Setting Process Goals, Speaking Up in the Face of Fear, Winning The Inside Game, & Living a Meaningful Life

620: Steve Magness - Defining Success on Your Terms, Setting Process Goals, Speaking Up in the Face of Fear, Winning The Inside Game, & Living a Meaningful Life

02/03/25 • 64 min

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

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Episode #620 with Steve Magness, author of Win The Inside Game

Notes:

Clearly define your purpose and what you want to do. For Steve, it’s: "Explore interesting ideas that will help people."
- "Those things will help me too. I'm curious about them." Defining that one sentence frees you up to say no to those things outside of your purpose and to focus on actions within that align with your purpose.
Steve's Framework for Sustainable Excellence:
- Be - Clarity on who you are
- Do - Clairty in your pursuits
- Belong - Clarity on where and how you fit in
Steve stood up as a whistleblower after earning his dream job at Nike, showing courage and sticking to his values and ethics.
Why don't we speak up? We have a built in preservation system. We justify, rationalize, and avoid it because it minimizes the negative feeling in the short term.
Don't play prevent defense. Give yourself the permission and freedom to fail. Diversify sense of self. Don't intertwine a sense of self with success or fear of failure.
Diversify your sense of self—don’t intertwine your identity solely with success or the fear of failure.
It’s not an all-or-nothing game. Outcomes matter, but they aren’t everything. Focus on process goals and let outcomes be a byproduct of good effort.
Set your environment up to define what success means for you.
Big achievements, like becoming a best-selling author, rarely feel as fulfilling as imagined.
Success can be multi-dimensional and definitionally nuanced.
The Power of Belonging
- When facing a challenge (like climbing a hill), it feels easier when you’re with others versus alone.
- We need each other. We share the load. Surround yourself with compounders. "We are built to belong."
It is a mistake to make success or failure a virtue. It's not "I'm a failure." It's, "I failed at that thing." It's temporary. It's not who you are.
In moments of stress (e.g., choking in sports like Simone Biles), your brain defaults to survival mode and shuts down higher-level functions.
Strategies to overcome it:
- Narrow your focus: Break tasks into smaller, actionable steps.
- Create a personal definition of success to shift focus from fear.
- Try doing something unexpected or crazy to reset your perspective.
To have a meaningful life we need to feel
- Coherent - Life adds up. You have a cohesive story.
- Significant - You matter and can make a difference.
- Directed - There’s a purpose to your life and pursuits.
- Belonging - Part of something bigger than you.
“This book is for those who stood up, found courage, and stuck to their values and ethics.”

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Episode #620 with Steve Magness, author of Win The Inside Game

Notes:

Clearly define your purpose and what you want to do. For Steve, it’s: "Explore interesting ideas that will help people."
- "Those things will help me too. I'm curious about them." Defining that one sentence frees you up to say no to those things outside of your purpose and to focus on actions within that align with your purpose.
Steve's Framework for Sustainable Excellence:
- Be - Clarity on who you are
- Do - Clairty in your pursuits
- Belong - Clarity on where and how you fit in
Steve stood up as a whistleblower after earning his dream job at Nike, showing courage and sticking to his values and ethics.
Why don't we speak up? We have a built in preservation system. We justify, rationalize, and avoid it because it minimizes the negative feeling in the short term.
Don't play prevent defense. Give yourself the permission and freedom to fail. Diversify sense of self. Don't intertwine a sense of self with success or fear of failure.
Diversify your sense of self—don’t intertwine your identity solely with success or the fear of failure.
It’s not an all-or-nothing game. Outcomes matter, but they aren’t everything. Focus on process goals and let outcomes be a byproduct of good effort.
Set your environment up to define what success means for you.
Big achievements, like becoming a best-selling author, rarely feel as fulfilling as imagined.
Success can be multi-dimensional and definitionally nuanced.
The Power of Belonging
- When facing a challenge (like climbing a hill), it feels easier when you’re with others versus alone.
- We need each other. We share the load. Surround yourself with compounders. "We are built to belong."
It is a mistake to make success or failure a virtue. It's not "I'm a failure." It's, "I failed at that thing." It's temporary. It's not who you are.
In moments of stress (e.g., choking in sports like Simone Biles), your brain defaults to survival mode and shuts down higher-level functions.
Strategies to overcome it:
- Narrow your focus: Break tasks into smaller, actionable steps.
- Create a personal definition of success to shift focus from fear.
- Try doing something unexpected or crazy to reset your perspective.
To have a meaningful life we need to feel
- Coherent - Life adds up. You have a cohesive story.
- Significant - You matter and can make a difference.
- Directed - There’s a purpose to your life and pursuits.
- Belonging - Part of something bigger than you.
“This book is for those who stood up, found courage, and stuck to their values and ethics.”

Previous Episode

undefined - 619: Mike Maples Jr. - Practicing Reckless Optimism, Betting On Founders, Bill Gates Hiring Mike Sr at Microsoft, Being Overprepared, & What It Means To Do YOUR Best

619: Mike Maples Jr. - Practicing Reckless Optimism, Betting On Founders, Bill Gates Hiring Mike Sr at Microsoft, Being Overprepared, & What It Means To Do YOUR Best

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

My Guest: Mike Maples Jr is a co-founding Partner at Floodgate. He has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade and was recently profiled by Harvard Business School for his lifetime contributions to entrepreneurship. Some of his early investments include: Twitter, DemandForce, Twitch, and Applied Intuition. Mike is also the bestselling author of Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future.

Notes

Chance favors the prepared mind. We are all visited by luck, but most of us don’t answer the door. We need to become a professional noticer. That is Mike’s favorite verb. Noticing. Most people don’t have prepared minds. Be intentional about noticing the world around you and being prepared for when luck visits you.
Mike's dad died 7 days before we recorded. “He was a mentor, a friend, and one of the greatest inspirations of my life.” His advice: Do your best. There’s only one of you. Decide what to do with your gift of time, be intentional. Have gratitude for your time. Make the most of it. Don’t waste it trying to be someone else.
Focus - Fishing competition when Mike was 5 or 6. Let’s find a good spot and stay there the entire time. While everyone else moved constantly, Mike and his dad stayed in their spot, caught a big carp, and won.
Bill Gates begged Mike’s dad to “be the adult in the room” at Microsoft. Mike Sr would say to the people he led at Microsoft, "I want to know that you’re thinking about what you’re doing." He used a Socratic method. He was not prescriptive.
Be proactive. Have an intentional strategy. Be intentional.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull - The biggest limits in the world are the limits of your mind, your imagination, and your actions– not the limits of the world itself.
Have to get over that voice in your head that says, “You’re not good enough.”
We get told to be realistic or stay within the lines.
Everybody is figuring it out as they go. Everyone is “winging it.”
Only by being radically different can you make a radical difference.
Great founders are like Patrick Mahomes and Steph Curry. You don’t know how they’re going to score, but you know they will.
Practice Reckless Optimism – The world is built by Optimists. You need to be FOR something. Bet ON something, not against it.
Mike sees himself as a co-conspirator more than an investor.
There can’t be a recipe for a breakthrough because by definition breakthroughs haven’t happened yet.
“Chance favors the prepared mind.” We are all visited by luck but most don’t answer the door.
Chris Rock - Forming unexpected connections.
Sam Beskind (Stanford basketball player where he played for Rob Ehsan) - Time management strategy. Stanford coaches had a one-pager with 3 keys to winning. Not 20. 3. If you have 20 keys, you have none. Nobody can remember all that.
Life/Career Advice: Internalize what it means to do your best. Gratitude for your time. Avoid the trap of mimetic desire. The “T” of knowledge. Charlie Munger. Try to know what the best ideas that have ever existed in a wide range of fields. Then choose one field to know about more than anyone else in the world. Have one area where you are fanatically obsessed. For Mike, that’s startups.

Next Episode

undefined - 621: Rachel Botsman - Being Comfortable with Uncertainty, Giving Trust Before It's Earned, Being on Time, Giving Great Keynotes, & How To Trust and Be Trusted

621: Rachel Botsman - Being Comfortable with Uncertainty, Giving Trust Before It's Earned, Being on Time, Giving Great Keynotes, & How To Trust and Be Trusted

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes.

Rachel Botsman has become an expert on trust in the modern world. She’s written three books: What’s Mine is Yours, Who Can You Trust, and How to Trust and Be Trusted. Her TED talks have amassed over 5 million views. And she teaches at Oxford University’s Business School where she created pioneering courses on trust in the digital age has become an expert on trust in the modern world. She’s written three books: What’s Mine is Yours, Who Can You Trust, and How to Trust and Be Trusted. Her TED talks have amassed over 5 million views.

Notes:

Trust is being comfortable with uncertainty.
Capability and Character - Assholes are capable people with low character.
Demonstrate the ability to take risks. Confidence in the unknown. Healthy challenge and push mentality.
Trust willing – Lead with Trust. Make the trust wager. What’s the best way to earn someone’s trust? LEAD with trust. Trust them first. This also creates a highly attractive company or team. Don’t you want to attract highly trusting, capable people? The best way to do that is to lead with trust.
- Be more trust willing. Lead with Trust. Jim Collins story. Make the trust wager. You don't have to earn it, you got it.
Willingness to be a beginner. Be curious. Look stupid at first. Those are good qualities in a leader.
For keynote speaking:
- Share your expertise, but don't seek approval
- Share your stories, but don't look for validation
- Share your passion, but don't perform for the applause
Don't sell from the stage. Don't show your book. Don't give your resume.
Honor the present. If you’re running a meeting, start it on time. Honor the people who showed up on time. Leaders who are overscheduled... It’s usually their fault and it comes from ego. If you’ve hired a capable team, then you don’t have to be in every meeting. Also, if you’re always late, you aren’t reliable. And that becomes part of your reputation. That’s not something we want to be known for.
- How can people trust you if you're always late? They won't. You aren't reliable if you're always late. Reliability is a big part of your reputation. It can become the thing you're known for. That's bad.
The power of consistency: Intensity makes a good story. Consistency makes progress.
Consistency builds trust.
Leaders who are overscheduled have a problem they've created for themselves. It's usually from ego.
Interviewing leaders for jobs. High character is a must. We can teach capabilities later.
Paul Simon's audiobook with Pushkin is awesome.
Rachel's five principles for trust:
- Competence: Having the skills, knowledge, time, and resources to do what you say you'll do
- Reliability: Being dependable and consistent in your actions
- Integrity: Being honest about your intentions and motives, and ensuring your words and actions align
- Empathy: Caring about others' interests and how your actions affect them
- Consistent action: Earning trust through how you show up, set expectations, and deliver acts of caring
Life/Career Advice:
- Don’t get boxed in too early and grow a career based on being able to tell people at parties that you work at a prestigious company.
- Look for great teams and great bosses. The industry doesn’t matter as much as the people. Culture is everything. People are everything.
- And then when you’re younger it’s helpful to be a generalist. Know a little about a lot of things. But as you get older, it’s useful to become a specialist at something. Become an expert. Go deep on a topic. This is similar to what Mike Maples Jr said on episode #619.