Stop Dabbling: How High Performers Choose One Path and Go All In

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1:43Ryan Hawk:I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona at my Learning Leader Growth Summit two years ago. I'm doing a surprise live podcast I'm inviting in, his name is Ed Lattimore heavyweight boxer, physicist chess player I mean, done a lot of stuff He's a real renaissance man He used this phrase that what he's trying to do in his life is beef up his obituary and so my natural question was Ed, well how do you beef up your obituary? and he said, well at the end, they're going to say he didn't dabble meaning in a world where we have infinite choice, infinite options. If you look at the people who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, they've made a commitment to continually focus on that thing day after day.

2:31Running a business means solving problems. I tell you how the smartest entrepreneurs do it. Hi, I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, and this is Problem Solvers.

2:45You know what I love about entrepreneurs? They're curious people, endlessly curious. I am endlessly curious, but there's a downside to being endlessly curious. And that is that you want to do a little bit of everything. It's really hard to commit. And so I try a little of this, you try a little of that. Maybe, maybe, maybe you launch one business and you're like, you know what? That's pretty cool. Can I launch like a second and a third business? And I can actually have a side hustle on top of that. And also I think I'm going to go try this other thing over there. And, And what you end up with is this thing that is lionized.

3:14And I actually, I'll be honest, I do a lot of this. So this is going to be an interesting conversation. But we spread ourselves incredibly thin. We dabble. We dabble. And today, I want to be challenged in this kind of thinking. Because today, we're going to talk about how maybe the best thing for your business and for your life is to not keep your options open, to not be dabbling, to not be looking around, to not be saying, why don't I try this and that and build the portfolio life. Instead, to pick it and to go deep. And picking something and going deep is scary because, and maybe this is the reason a lot of entrepreneurs don't do it, because you don't know if you've picked the right place to go deep.

3:58Because maybe actually you're going to invest in something that's not going to work out. Maybe the reason to dabble is to spread your risk out. But if you spread your risk out, then you're never really, really going where you need to be. So here is how we're going to do this. I have a really great guy we've talked before. His name is Ryan Hawk. He is the author of a new book called The Price of Becoming, The Compounding Practices of High Performance. And Ryan's podcast, The Learning Leader Show, which I have been on, is a chart topper. And for good reason, as you'll hear in a second, because this guy is so thoughtful, also has just a really great deep voice.

4:37You're going to hear it. It's going to be great. And in his new book, he argues among many things in The Price of Becoming that to really build something meaningful for yourself, for others, don't keep your options open. Ryan Hawk, welcome to Problem Solvers.

4:55Ryan Hawk:dude that's one of the best intros of all time thank you jason you know uh that i i've i've long ago decided that if you prepare anything it doesn't come off nearly as well as if you just do it off the top of your head so um so ryan uh you have now validated that you've got a great deep voice um tell me first about the price of becoming and then let's get into why you should not keep your options open. Okay. It's been a few years. I've interviewed people like you for the past 11 years. So these are the world movers, the deep thinkers, the great communicators, CEOs, writers, special forces operators, athletes, everything in between.

5:36Ryan Hawk:So 700 of those conversations, 11 years, and also combined with the studying of like a Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, the power of compounding them talking about business investing money uh i think there's a lot of portable lessons to take from them plus all of the people i've talked to plus some of the stuff from my own life and that's uh what the price is and and this it's this idea of never arriving always becoming the price of becoming is the title that we settled on which i love actually because i think there's there's a high cost um one of them uh i think we're going to talk about in a second.

6:14Ryan Hawk:But yeah, I spent the last few years trying to synthesize the best of the best of what I've learned and then make it as useful and entertaining as possible for a reader. And that's what this is. Fantastic. Yeah. The thing you just said there about, you know, always becoming reminds me when I was in my twenties, I went to Berlin on vacation and I took a bike tour around Berlin, which I strongly recommend. It was great. And, uh, and the tour guy said this thing that I've kind of been repeating forever, which is he said, Berlin is always becoming, it never is. And what a great way to describe a city, but also people too.

6:54I would rather always be becoming versus is. So I love what you're planting your flag in here. So, okay, set me up. I know I described a bit of the problem here of stretching yourself too thin, But to talk about how we should not keep our options open, I'd like to start in true problem solver style with just what you see the problem is that so many entrepreneurs and leaders do. Yeah.

7:20Ryan Hawk:Are you cool if I set up where I pick where I learn this? Set it up. Take it. OK, I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona at my Learning Leader Growth Summit two years ago. I am doing a surprise live podcast. I'm inviting in a guy who actually has dabbled a bit, has tried a lot of different things. His name is Ed Lattimore, heavyweight boxer, physicist, chess player. I mean, did a lot of stuff. He's a real renaissance man. Yeah, he's a great guy. Highly recommend talking to him. Anyway, he used this phrase that what he's trying to do in his life is beef up his obituary. Beef up your obituary. I thought, oh, that's cool, man.

7:59Ryan Hawk:And I like the thought of beefing up your obituary. I've never heard somebody use that phrase. And so my natural question was, Ed, well, how do you beef up your obituary? And he said, well, at the end, they're going to say he didn't dabble. Meaning in a world where we have infinite choice, infinite options. If you want to eat at a different place, you can have it delivered to you touching a button on your phone. If you want to date somebody different every single day, you can do the exact same thing by going on an app on your phone. On and on and on. And the difference is if you look at the people who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, the ones who are leaving a positive dent in the world, that they've made a decision and they've made a commitment to continually focus on that thing day after day.

8:50Ryan Hawk:If you want to get back to the Buffetts and Mungers of the world, They've made a commitment to reading every day, to becoming increasingly knowledgeable about the thing that they're focused on and not really ever deviating from understanding companies, understanding business, understanding as much as humanly possible about what they're doing and not really dabbling in anything else outside of that but making a full commitment to that. The same is true for a relationship. I'm fully committed to my wife, Miranda. I think dabbling around outside of that probably wouldn't serve me well in not only my marriage, but also just my life in general.

9:26Ryan Hawk:And so I think it's applicable to lots of things. With that said, I think there's some exceptions to the rule that there are times in our life when we're not fully sure yet. And that's probably hopefully a little bit earlier in life. I'm in my I'm 44 at this point. And so I'm in a better stage of making a commitment because I've dabbled a little bit earlier in my career to figure out what I'm best suited to do, what I'm best at. And now I can make a full commitment to that thing and not leave my options open anymore, at least not nearly as much as I used to. So first, I think we need to address what sounds like a contradiction, which is you before telling us about the message that you got from him about Focus told me about all these things that he's done.

10:20So wait a second. He's a boxer. He dabbled. He did dabble, but it sounds like he dabbled deep because he committed for stretches of time to specific things to reach some level of mastery over them. So how do you square being able to be great at something with also not wanting to be locked into something?

10:42Ryan Hawk:It's a great question. Can I tell you a story that I learned from my dad that has to do with our last name. For sure. Okay. So growing up, my dad rose the ranks within corporate America and at one point was leading 1 ,500 people. And so when you're the boss of that many people, you get gifts at Christmastime. A lot of jams. A lot of jars of jam. What's that? I said lots of jars of jam. Well, actually, people tried to be a little bit more creative. So our last name is Hawk. Yeah. And so one of the gifts that my dad would get would actually be like stuffed, not real, but like hawks. Okay. Like actual, like the bird.

11:22Ryan Hawk:It's kind of intense. It is. And he would put them in like our family room above our garage, which is like a storage space. And there were a number of them up there. I remember thinking when I was little, Dad, this is weird. Why are there so many hawks? And he goes, well, you know, people are trying to be original or whatever. That's our last name. And so they're doing that. And he goes, have you ever looked in and studied what a hawk is like? I said, no. Why would I, you know, I would be, he goes, you should, it's actually really cool. So I did. And now I actually kind of identify, and I'm going to answer your question by telling the story about the way a hawk lives, okay?

11:58Ryan Hawk:So a hawk has eight times better eyesight than you and I do, right? They have amazing eyesight. They can observe and notice the world. So what a hawk does, that's how it lives, is it flies up high and it glides. And it's observing the world. It's looking for opportunities, right? Opportunities, mainly something to eat, right? It's just scanning the world, looking for opportunities as it's gliding, right? So in a way, it's kind of dabbling, right? It's kind of just being a noticer of the world, looking for opportunities. But one of the cool things about a hawk, once it makes a decision of what it's going to do or what it's going after, the prey, the food, it commits with everything it has to aggressively attack that thing.

12:48Ryan Hawk:So at that point, it's not dabbling anymore. It makes a decision, it makes a commitment, and it goes with everything it has. So like Malcolm Gladwell told you, I think there is a bit of both, meaning you're going to scan, you're going to notice, you're going to be open to opportunities like the hawk is right you're going to be a good noticer of things but once you make the commitment to say yes i'm going to do that thing you give literally everything you've got to being as great as you can possibly be at that one specific thing in that one moment and that's what i try to do i try my best so if i'm going to host a podcast you can bet I'm going to try to learn everything there is about how to host a podcast, how to interview people, how to prepare, how to ask questions, how to listen, how to ask better follow-up questions, and then all the other things that go with writing or hosting a podcast.

13:45Ryan Hawk:Same thing with writing a book or giving a keynote speech, right? So whatever the one thing is, at that moment, can I give maximum focus and energy? No dabbling, no screwing around. We're focused on this one thing. And then when I put my head up and I look for the next thing, okay, then I'm gonna go to the next thing. But that's, that's how I think like I square that is that I'm going to be a noticer, I'm going to observe. But then once I commit, I'm going to give everything I got to that one thing. What you said interestingly about how to commit is you started to list off every element of it.

14:19So you used the example of the podcast. You're like, here, I'm going to learn this, I'm going to learn this, I'm going to learn this, I'm going to learn this. I wonder if you have built out some kind of system for yourself of what committing actually looks like, because it sounds like to start, a thing that you're doing is identifying the component parts of whatever it is that you're committing to and then making sure that you have mastery over them. I wonder if that's a conscious thing that you're doing and how you guide people to really keep that focus and know that they've picked the right thing to focus on so that they are not continually distracted by the stuff that's outside of that scope.

14:56Ryan Hawk:Yeah, it's a really good point. It's hard to fully know if it's the right thing. With that said, it's like you got to oscillate between this preparing slash learning and then doing and then iterating as you go. As you know, this as an entrepreneur, that's the key to it is we learn who we are in practice, not in theory. Herminia Barra said that. And I think that's really critical is you have to go do the thing. People say, like, I want to be a good keynote speaker. I'm like, well, how often are you getting on stage? Like, you got to go get on stage and give talks, free talks, wherever you can speak, anyone listen to you.

15:32Ryan Hawk:So whatever the thing is that you're focused on, that you're committed to doing, it's this combination of being a student, for sure, but then being the doer of the thing. So whatever it is, in my case, you bring up the podcast, it was a combination of always studying and learning. I remember devouring all these YouTube videos by Pat Flynn and others who were putting them out there 12 years ago now before I started to try to understand everything that entailed from all the gear and the back-end stuff to then all the interview skilling and guest acquisition through cold emails and partnering with PR people.

16:08Ryan Hawk:Yes, it's understanding all of it while doing it at the same time. So, like, I think you're constantly oscillating between learner and doer. And then eventually you add in teacher to that, too, where you really solidify what you're learning. I think writing books as being a teacher, standing up in front of a group of people as being a teacher, being a guest on a podcast as being a teacher of sorts. And so I think it's like trying to get that flywheel going of all those things of learning and doing and teaching and keep it spinning is how you, I think, continually improve. Yeah, the teaching thing is really valuable, and it's something I do a lot of too.

16:46Now, I mean, I guess to be fair, you and I both have outlets for teaching. And so there are lots of different outlets, right? I mean, I can speak for myself. I've got writing in the magazine. I've got my own personal newsletter. I've got the podcast. I've got speaking on stages. There's lots of different ways to do this. But what I found is that for me, the pathway to learning, and I don't know if this is universal or if it's just what works for me, the pathway to learning goes like this. Conversation with somebody, identifying the element of it that is most impactful, and then teaching that to somebody else in some form, whether it's a piece of writing or whatever.

17:27And that is what enables me to remember it and start to integrate it into my mental catalog of other insights that are relevant and related. And I've thought a lot about why that is. Why is it that that is such an important part of it? And I think it's because every part of that is allowing me to engage with the idea in a tactile way. So first, there's the conversation. I don't learn very well by reading or by honestly listening to podcasts. Apologies to me and you because we have podcasts. But I learn best by talking to people. So it's better that I host a podcast. But what I'm really doing is I'm giving myself the freedom and the space to interact with an idea in real time, find that place where it really connects with me.

18:19And then it is the turning around and making it useful to others, figuring out how would I articulate this? How do I marry this thing that I just learned with something else that I know or some personal anecdote or something so that it becomes memorable to me? And that's what's making it stick for me. So it's interesting to hear you say that. I wonder if that's something that you advise everyone. And what should somebody do if they don't have the kinds of platforms that we do to teach people?

18:44Ryan Hawk:So I work with leaders in corporate America, and they don't necessarily have podcasts or newsletters or anything like that. They don't write books. One of the questions I ask all of them, especially at the very beginning, I say, hey, when's the next training you're leading? They always look at me sideways like, what? Either a CEO or a CRO or COO or whatever. When's the next training you're leading? Well, I don't lead trainings. I'm a C-suite person. We have other people who do that. No, no, no, no. If we're going to work together, you're going to lead trainings. When's the next meeting you have with a mentee where you're going to try to help them?

19:17Ryan Hawk:Well, I don't really have mentees. I have people that work for me and stuff. Okay, we have to reframe this. I push every leader I work with to put themselves in the position of teaching others on a consistent basis precisely because of what you just said. That's when you actually cement what you really believe, what you really think. Try to – it's like – I remember my very first book. This happened now. It's my fourth book. My first book, you write like two sample chapters, and then the marketing plan, and eventually a publisher buys it, right? And then like, all right, you got a year or six months or however long, nine months to write the book.

19:55Ryan Hawk:You don't fully know what you know until you're forced to get those messy thoughts out of your head onto the page. Writing is such an amazing tool for learning. Writing is teaching. So I push the leaders I work with to write, to create some sort of writing practice. journal. They could publish it publicly or not. I love it if they do because then they get feedback and it's really good. And or to sign up and regularly teach others. And I often at the beginning, I don't even care what they choose to teach about. I just want them to get the feeling of teaching, to get the feeling of training, because especially for these like high ego people, they don't want to look stupid when they get up in front of a group to teach somebody something.

20:40Ryan Hawk:They want to look good. They want to prove like they know what they're talking about. So the amount of work preparing and writing and getting ready to teach and then delivering the teaching and then getting feedback on what was useful and what helped other people, that is really where you bring the learning home. So leaders or just people in general, sign up to teach. Volunteer to teach. Write. These things are available to all of us. it's just wild to me how many people don't do it because I'm too busy or whatever. No, no, no. There's no excuse for that. I think if you want to really cement and learn and grow and improve, teach, write, make sure others can hear what you think.

21:19Ryan Hawk:Then you'll get real clear on what you believe. So powerful. Let's go back just to make sure that we didn't skip over the anxiety that I think a lot of people feel about whether or not they've picked the right thing to dive deep on. That is certainly true for me. I will be honest. I place a lot of bets and I'm not sure which one of those bets is going to pay off. And look, I'm a year older than you, man. I'm 45. Can you walk me through some of the different bets that you've made and we can maybe analyze how or if to know they were the correct thing to bet on? Sure. Well, I mean, look, one of the bets is, I mean, I bet for a long time on a media career and it got me to Entrepreneur Magazine, which is great.

22:04But I don't want to rest there because it's not my company. Anything could happen. So that can't be where it is. Keynote speaking. I do a good business keynote speaking now. I love it. But I never wanted it to be my full-time thing. I want to do it 20 gigs a year. Sounds good to me, somewhere around there. So I've seen people go deep on that. They're like, I'm just going to commit to that. That's going to be my whole thing. No, that's not working for me. I advise a lot of companies. I love advising companies. You know why? Because I don't have to run any of those companies. I like to be kind of popping in and out of things.

22:43Ryan Hawk:How's that structured, by the way? This is maybe a side question, but how's it structured when you say I advise a company? I mean, I join an advisory board. We come up with a contract. They give me usually a quarter percent, maybe a little, maybe more depending of equity. Sometimes they pay me as well. And there's set expectations about what it is that I'm going to do for them. Okay. Yeah. Nice. And, and, and, and, you know, there's, let's see, I have podcasts, but I don't, I have not gone as deep as you have in getting to know the podcast industry or pouring resources into building the podcasts.

23:14I have a newsletter. I love that newsletter. It has 85 ,000 subscribers. I spent a little money on growth, but I have not, what I would say is learned the newsletter industry well enough to truly say, this is the thing that I'm going to build and it's going to be mine. I just kind of do a lot of things, but I don't feel like I'm fully investing in any of them.

23:34Ryan Hawk:What's your favorite thing to do? Well, my favorite thing to do is to be a on the fly communicator. Like I said in the beginning, that intro that I just did with you, I think that my skillset, I believe, is that I can process information quickly, make it engaging and useful to others, and think really fast on the fly. And so when I'm either advising a founder and somebody calls me and they're freaking out and they're like, what should I do? And that I have an answer for them on the fly is really satisfying. Similarly, if I am on a stage, I'm doing a version of that. If I'm emceeing an event, I'm doing a version of that.

24:15I like to be in the moment, processing information really quickly, guiding people towards something. At this point, I don't really like operations. I don't really like sitting down and writing a whole long thing that takes a long time. I like to be there. That's what I like. So to me, it feels like you have made a commitment to be a professional communicator. That's right.