Welcome to Howl Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Guy Ross, the host and creator of two wildly popular podcasts. How I built this and wisdom from the top. In fact, I was just interviewed on wisdom from the top, which is how Guy and I got to know each other. Guy is a remarkable leader who not only has the most soothing voice you'll ever hear, but the motivation behind all that he does is something that we can all learn from and be inspired by. And it's this, he wants to serve his listeners and all those that work with him and add value to their lives. And I'll tell you, I can't think of a better quality of leadership than that, doing all that you do in service of others. Let's not wait any longer. Here's my conversation with my friend and soon to be yours, Guy Ross. Now, Guy, I'm sure you're a little nervous because you're new to this whole podcast thing. But don't worry. I'm going to coach you through it and it will have a little fun. Okay. Thank you. But you know, it's funny you say that David because I've been in broadcasting and now we call it podcasting for 25 years. And every time I do an interview or when I speak, it doesn't matter how experienced I am. I always get a little nervous and I remember a veteran telling me 10 years ago, he said, the moment you stop getting nervous is the moment that you've got to try something new because you're not challenging yourself enough. So I do get a little nervous even now, every time. Well, I'm glad you're nervous for this show and I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I recently had the honor of being on your podcast, Wisdom from the Top. And I loved listening to your podcast. So when I got that chance to be on your podcast, I have to tell you it really was an honor. But I learned when we were talking afterwards that you're really pretty much of an entrepreneur yourself these days. Tell us about what you've got going on. You know, it's something I don't talk about too much in part because I don't really want to take any attention away from the shows. To me, the shows I do, that's the star. I'm not the star of the show. How I built this is and the guests are, you know, how I built this or wisdom from the top or we've got a kids podcast going on the world. For me, it's the content is king. That's the star. And so I haven't really talked about my own entrepreneurial ventures in part because I've never really thought it was relevant, but increasingly I'm coming to understand that it is in part because there are a lot of people who are creating companies and businesses around content creation around what they're putting out on YouTube or, you know , in podcasts or on social media. And it's a really interesting ecosystem. For me, I've got two companies that I co-founded. One company I co-founded, one company I founded, the company I founded is called Builted Productions. And you can pretty much guess what that does. It produces podcasts like How I Built This and Wisdom from the Top. And we are in partnership with Amazon Music and Wondery. So we'll be launching new shows in the fall. And the basic premise of that production company, we've got 10 or so employees, is that we really want to create content that is worth your time. So essentially the way I think about shows is we all have roughly 16 to 18 waking hours during the day, let's say 16, right? And most of us, if we're lucky, have one to two, maybe three hours of personal time, which might include running, exercising, cooking, driving, commuting. And I'm asking you to give me 45 minutes to an hour of that precious time. And so what I give you better be worth your time. And for me to earn your time, I've got to make something really powerful, compelling and value add for your day and your life. And so that's how we think about what we do. We're not writing masterpieces every day. I'm not Shakespeare. But we really try to create things that we think will at least give somebody something to think about and walk away from having learned something or gives them a tool to improve what they do. Yeah, I want to ask you something about that because when I talk to founders and when I listen to your how I built this podcast, it seems like these founders all seem to have some sort of noble cause. They don't really go into these things to get rich, but they're trying to enrich the world. So this notion of being worth your time, that seems like your noble causes of this particular business. As humans, we're kind of wired to be selfish, right? Because that's how we survive. We need to eat and we need to secure ourselves and be safe. And I think as we've evolved as humans, we've tried to fight against some of our selfish instincts that are encoded in who we are. And one of the things that really helps me is to think about, and it actually is a really important kind of psychological trick that I use that helps me feel confident about trying to sell what I do. Because it's a sales job. I want people to listen to how I built this. I want them to listen to wisdom on the top. But really, what helps me quote unquote sell those shows is to think about what I do in service of others. Now of course, it's how I make a living. I earn money from that. And so it's not a selfless, you know, entirely selfless operation, but at its core, at its heart, what I'm doing is trying to serve the people who don't have access to the founders I have access to. You know, I can call pretty much any founder and get them on how I built this. We're really privileged and lucky because we have a big platform and audience. But I take that responsibility very seriously because I think about somebody who's got a small brick and mortar store who's trying to figure out how to create a second location or somebody who's running a shop on Etsy and thinking about how to scale or expand. And I think about what I do as a free business school course for them, you know , a service that is free that will hopefully give them information that is useful. And so to me, I really do think about what I do in service of others. And it actually, that's what drives me. I get jazzed about that. You know, I love that. I love that too. And you know, a good friend of mine, Tim Schur just wrote this book called The Secret Society Success. Any list, all kinds of example of people who found that extra gratification by being other directed. And I want you to talk about your other business. But before I do, you know, it seems like the happiest people in the world based on all the research are those people that are other directed. You know, what do you think makes that so? There's been, and I'm not a neuroscientist or social scientist, but I've talked to many of them. And I think that there is a very clear connection between giving and an increase in serotonin and oxytocin in these chemicals in our body that are triggered when we give. There's something about giving that really does trigger happiness. And so it's a kind of strange thing, which is you find that people who are philanthropic, they are of course motivated by the desire to do well. You're very philanthropic. You want to help. You want to use your resources. But it also, there's also a really important return on that, which is it makes you feel really good about what you're doing because it makes you feel like you are moving the needle and making a contribution to it needed change. And so I think that the idea of being in service is very much a very kind of human response because being happy or seeking happiness, David, and I think about happiness a lot because happiness is hard to be happy for most of us requires work. It requires constant work. It requires things like thinking about what you do in service of others. It requires taking care of yourself. It requires being part of a community and it's not easy. It's not always easy to do those things. It takes work and we're not always happy all the time. There are moments where we're not happy, but it's this magical thing that we're all chasing after. Well, there's a secret to it and I think we're both working at it is best of our ability. Tell me about your other business. Yeah, I have a company that I co-founded called Tinkercast. It's a children and family media company. I co-founded it with two friends of mine. It started out as an idea back in 2016. I have a good friend named Mindy Thomas and she is an extremely talented children's radio personality. She has a show on SiriusXM and I had been appearing on her show as her kind of news person just for fun once a week. We went on a hike and I said, "We really should make a show for kids that is so good they will ask for it instead of a screen." A show that is so compelling, is so evocative that kids will seek it out instead of a video. And that was the beginnings of what we created and what we launched five years ago, which is a kids podcast called Wow in the World. And the premise is every single episode David comes from a peer-reviewed scientific journal article. So we take a peer-reviewed scientific study and we break it down into a journey for kids so that core of the show is really hard science, but we might go into outer space. We might go in our time machine and go back in time. We might ride on our giant pigeon Reggie. We might go to a game show taping with our nosy neighbor Dennis. We have all these characters that we created in this show and very luckily when we launched it five years ago, it became very popular. And today we are very fortunate. It is the top kids podcast in English. So we built a whole company around it with a third co-founder named Meredith who is our CEO, Meredith Ranser, Halpern Ranser. And we have five podcasts. We have a partnership with Amazon Music and Wondery. We have a live show production that we just started live shows again in this year. We're in Raleigh Durham, Chicago, Denver, Portland, Nashville. We're going to several cities in 2022. You sell all those out, don't you? Sell them out. It's amazing because I make programs for adults and then I have this show and we have kids who are three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve who only know me as a kid's sort of a silly character on the science show. And it's amazing to be able to be part of it. We have an edtech platform that we're working on. It's crazy because we started a side project and today we have 22 employees. And so we've built up this amazing company that is just growing like crazy. That's fantastic. You know, I recently wrote this book and just released it called Take Charge of You. I just got it. You know, and then I talk about the importance of leaders taking a look at their joy blockers and their joy builders. And when you think about the leadership role that you're in now, what are the joy blockers that you have to deal with and what are your joy builders and how do you reconcile it to in terms of how you do your work? You know, I think about this a lot because as you know, David, leadership is a journey that never ends. And I'm 47 and I expect to be a better leader when I'm 57 and 67 and 77 because I'm a better leader than I was 10 years ago and I'm learning. There are things I'm not good at and things I wish I could be better at. I'm not detail oriented. I'm detail oriented about the quality of my shows, but I can't keep track of spreadsheets or tasks or things like that. So there are things that I cut out. I don't do slack, for example, which drives my team crazy. They all communicate on slack. But I can't multitask easily. My brain isn't designed for that. I'm not great with meetings. Meetings for me are really challenging because I like to just do and move and there are types of people who really like to think things out and do them carefully, intentionally, and thoughtfully. And I think that is a great approach and my approach is the opposite. I just go and then kind of apologize later or try and fix it as I'm building the plane, you know, pushing it off the cliff. I think that one of my strengths as a leader is as a connector. I like to connect people with other people who have greater expertise than I do and who can solve problems. And so I really encourage the people who work for me to come to me with solutions rather than problems. They can identify a problem, but I also what I say to my team is if there's a problem, figure it out and solve it. And if you need to bring it to me, come to me with a problem with three suggested solutions because that's really why I brought you in because I think you can solve the problem. And ultimately, you know, my goal as a leader is to get to a place where I'm learning about things and decisions that were taken after the fact. And by the way, David, I will say this and you know this because you came from the ad space and that's a creative space where you're really focused on like nuance and words and language use. And there's a lot of control involved with that. And you're a creative person. And with what I do, I have that control freak part of me, but I do fight it and I've gotten a lot better. And I and by the way, I would say anybody who's a control freak listening to this, know there is hope for you because I am one of those people and I have fought it and continue to fight it. And I have learned over time to seed control to other people and to accept that the decisions others make on behalf of the company or what we do will not always be the decision that I chose, but ultimately it is a much better way to run an organization. You know, you have such high self awareness and that's really a transform ational insight about control. When did that control insight hit you? When did you have that transformational insight? Because I can tell this is something that really kind of it hits you over the head. I mean, I'm going through it now. You know, I think it's been an evolution over the last sort of three, four years. And one example is when we started how I built this seven years ago, every single word of that show I was editing. I was going over scripts with a highlighter and I was giving very, very specific direction to the producer. And I did that for a year. That is not sustainable. You cannot scale up a business or a product if you maintain that level of control for too long. Maybe at the beginning, right, maybe for a short period of time. It was really hard for me to understand and to accept that I have to let it go. And over time, I have let it go. And my role in making the product, how I built this or wasn't from the top, my role is to make sure that I am doing the absolute best job I can do, that I am giving that producer great raw material with which they can then sculpt into something. And I might not make the same choices that they make in editing the final version. We talk and I give them some suggestions, but ultimately it is their call. And I listen to the show. I don't actually listen to how I built this or wisdom from the top, usually for about two or three months after the episode airs. And the reason why I don't is because I'm susceptible to being impulsive. And I know that if I heard it right when it came out and there was something I wasn't happy with, I might call the producer and complain about it. And I don't want to be that person. I had to learn how to not be that person. Because that's actually counterproductive. And the way I see my job is to find great people and to cheer them on. And to cheer them on every way, not only because I want to retain them, but if they leave, if they want to go somewhere else, to cheer them on so much that we continue and maintain our friendship and our collaboration or our exchanges, which happens all the time. With Tinkercast, we just lost somebody to another company. And it's hard, but I'm cheering her on because she's going to learn so much. And I said to her, learn, learn, learn, and then come back and bring that knowledge back to us. And I love thinking about it that way. But you're still selling, man. I'm going to get you back here sooner or later. Do you enjoy managing people now as you're building these companies? And it sounds like both your companies have huge runway. You're going to have to scale yourself. You're going to have to get more and more people. Do you enjoy the process of managing people? You know, David, I'm learning how to do it better. I think that you were a CEO and so you really were able to develop that skill. It's interesting because with how I built this, I interview founders and with wisdom from the top, I interview CEOs mainly. And I know this is a bit controversial one about to say, but I've kind of walked away from both those shows, concluding that it's harder to be a CEO than a founder. I really believe that because when you're a founder, it's propulsive. You're in the garage. You're tinkering. You're trying to raise the money. It's nonstop. You're not really focused on culture building or management or HR. You're just moving, moving, moving. With management, it's very complex, right? Especially if you're taking over a large company. I mean, I think what Sundar Pichai at Google does, and of course, Larry and Sergey are brilliant guys and what they did was very hard. But I would argue that what he does now is harder than the startup phase because he's managing a massive multinational company. With respect to what I do on a very small scale, I'm still in the phase of trying to learn how to be a strong manager. My fault and I am very aware of this is I'm not good with confrontation, David. It's a weakness of mine. I really prefer concordance. I like to be liked, which I think is also a fault that I've been trying to work on knowing that sometimes people won't like you or they won't like your decision. So I'm working on it. With TinkerCast, I don't manage the company. We have an incredible CEO. But I'm very good at mentoring people and connecting people, which is what I do there. And with built-up productions, I'm the CEO and I oversee it, but we have an operational manager and a managing producer. And they are really focused on people management and staff management and making sure that people feel fulfilled. What I try to do as much as possible is focus on morale. And I know you talked about this, which is the easiest thing you could do is in the best thing you could do is to thank people and recognize people. And I've learned that from you. What is so important is to take the time to recognize people and to recognize what they've done, because when people are recognized, they feel valued. We all know that. Absolutely. And it's interesting you talk about conflict because productive conflict is an essential trait for a leader to get better at and being able to sniff out the conflict. You've got to see it in your organization and bring it it forward. I think one of the things that you'll learn as you go through this process more and more is that it's part of getting people to like you because they really need you to do it. Because if you don't do it, nobody else will. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because with Tinkercast, it's a partnership with two partners and both brilliant and both bring very different strengths. All three of us bring different strengths. And because we're equal co-founders, there is conflict. And so that happens among the three of us. And that I think is healthy and important and productive. When it comes to challenging conflict with team members is I try to be very mindful of the role I have in my companies. And it took me a while to understand that people see me as a powerful person, even if my self-perceptions like me, powerful, I'm your pal. But when you're a leader, you are perceived to be powerful and sometimes it can be intimidating to people. And it took me a while to understand that I can be intimidating to people. It was kind of a shock to learn that because I didn't know that. I never think of myself that way or stand offish or as unapproachable sometimes . And so that's something I've also worked on. And one of the ways I work on it is by trying to be really generous, particularly with younger people who are starting out and less experienced people because I want them to feel comfortable challenging me too. And so when I talk about conflict, it's more like conflict around challenging employees, which thankfully I haven't had too much of, but that's where I'm weaker as a manager. I've distilled all I've learned about leadership into three key fundamentals you need to learn if you want to be a great leader and effect change in your organization. I teach these three skills in a free leadership training that you can get access to today at howleaderslead.com/series. Get access to it today and learn what I believe to be the three most important things you can do to develop as a leader and make the world a better place. Howleaderslead.com/series. You are an entrepreneur now and you talk about entrepreneurship being a mindset . What do you mean by that guy? I just had a conversation with Mark Cuban. And Mark Cuban is one of the most, like the guy came out of diapers to be a, he was born to be an entrepreneur. He was reading a book called How to Retire in age 35 when he was in college. Like with professional athletes or CEOs, there is a talent factor. There are some people who are just naturally more talented and gifted. But I think that in my experience with entrepreneurs and founders, most of them learn those skills. Most of them develop those skills over time. In fact, many of them aren't necessarily charismatic. There's a guy that I just talked to recently called Frank Yang. And Frank Yang is one of the most self-effacing, quiet, almost shy, introverted people you will ever meet. And yet Frank built on his own an incredible company called Simplehuman. Makes trash cans, kitchen products. Of 100 million millions of dollars a year, he owns the company entirely. And he really built this company from an idea in his head to improve the trash can to make better design products. And so I think becoming an entrepreneur can very much be a learned skill. And oftentimes David people say, well, what do I need to know to be an entrepreneur? What should I do? And of course, there's some obvious answers. Go work in the industry for a while. You want to start a fast food chicken place. Go work at KFC for a few years and then go and start your own. But there's another factor which I think is even more important. And it is learn how to accept no. Learn how to accept no, but keep moving forward. Learn how to deal with rejection, but keep moving forward. So expose yourself to rejection. And one of the ways that many of the entrepreneurs I've interviewed have exposed themselves to rejection is by being salespeople, cold calling, going door to door and hearing no or not interested or thank you, but no, and still having to keep going and keep moving forward. Because when you're starting a business, you're going to hear a lot of no. You're going to hear a lot of no's. You're going to hear a lot of people who think your idea is stupid or who don't want to invest. And you have to be able to withstand that. And I believe that is a learned skill for most of us. I agree. And you talk about the importance of being a kind leader. Who gave you that insight? And when did that really hit you? I could say you, David, and many other founders and CEOs that I've talked to. I mean, Howard Schultz is a great example of that. Howard Schultz is a kind leader. He really prioritizes the treatment of his employees. Now, of course, there are all kinds of issues and some people might challenge that around their Starbucks employees who are unionizing and there have been reports about Starbucks opposing it. But I would say that Howard Schultz, in general, his operating principle has been to really take care of the people who work for the company. I mean, they have in general some of the lowest turnover rates in the QSR industry. They've long offered a higher pay and benefits and opportunities to get a bachelor's degree. And he was doing that before it became more standard. Today, I think there's an expectation that leaders need to take care of their people first. When you were kind of rising up the ranks in corporate America, the guy that was sort of the alpha model of leadership was Jack Welch. I don't think Jack Welch would be considered to be an acceptable CEO today. I think his brand and his mode of operating, I don't think he would last today. I think he'd be thrown out. You know what I mean? And even though he was a brilliant CEO, no question about it, but his style, it 's changed. I think there's an expectation for the better that leaders need to model kindness as much as possible. I think your point about Jack is very interesting because I agree with you. I think his style is outdated my way, the highway, the boss mentality. That's yesterday's newspaper. I think the thing about Jack and I knew him and knew him pretty well is that he was so smart. If he'd be coming up in this kind of environment today, he'd be probably the kindest guy in the world because he'd figure out that's what really drives it. You know, most people know you as the host of how I built this. And you wrote a phenomenal book that everybody should read. Tell us where you really, how you birth this idea of how I built this. I understand it was from classwork you did at Harvard. Back in 2008, I had a sabbatical year, which might seem weird because I was only 32, but I started out as a reporter when I was 22. So by that point, I had 10 years of experience and I'd been overseas. I covered the Iraq war. I covered the Afghan war. I covered Kosovo and the West Bank and Gaza. I've been all over the place as a reporter. And so I got this fellowship at Harvard for journalists and it's called the Ne iman Fellowship. And you could take any class you want. And I had never taken a business class in my life. I studied history and politics and diplomacy and international relations. That was my wheelhouse. That's what I did. So I took a class at Harvard Business School and it was the first time I ever took a business school class and, you know, with all these impressive young people. And I was stunned at the way they taught business school. The first day they gave us a case study. I didn't know any about case studies and it was part A and we had to read it and then come back three days later for part B and I devoured this. It was actually the story of Howard Schultz. It was the first one I ever read. And it read like a short story. It was so compelling. The only problem with it was that you had to pay $100,000 a year and be a student at Harvard Business School to have access to it. And I thought, what if I could do this exact same thing, but even better on the radio, or a podcast or whatever. I wasn't thinking podcast back then in 2008, but on the radio and make it free. And that was really the seed, that planted the seed in my mind. I didn't start the show until 2016, but it was this idea that you could essentially take a business school case study to that format and you could offer it to people for free in audio form with the person. And that's really how it began. And that was the kind of the mission of the show and thankfully it remains today. Again, here we're talking about a noble cause. You wanted to bring people these leaders that they could never hear about for free, which is a pretty nice thing to do. But you said that you really didn't launch it till 2016. What gave you the confidence to really pursue the idea and do something with it ? My career was really a slow burn. I mean, I was very, very fortunate early in my career to be very successful. I was an overseas correspondent for National Public Radio when I was 25. I was based in Berlin. And I was a war reporter by the age of 26 and all these things that I didn't anticipate. I think many people will share this. I am a confident person today at 47, but I still have doubts about many of my abilities. And I still sort of second guess, you know, ways I do interviews or some of the writing I do. But of course now I've been doing it for so long, I have more confidence. Early in my career, I really did have a major imposter syndrome. You know, I was 25. I was overseas. I was a reporter. And in my heart, I felt in my mind, I felt like I had duped my editors that I had somehow convinced them that I was capable of doing this work. I was really nervous. But I think that nervous energy really propelled a strong work ethic. I worked and outworked everybody because I was so scared that they would find out that I was a fraud, you know, that I had to file more stories and be available to travel everywhere I could travel to. And I think similarly with how I built this, I needed to feel confident that I could do it. And what gave me the confidence was a show that I created a few years before called the Ted Radio Hour. And by the time I started how I built this, I had already been a host of all things considered on NPR for a few years. And then I started a show called Ted Radio Hour. And that show was in partnership with Ted, the Ted Talks people. That show became really successful. And I began to believe that maybe I could start a new show around an entirely different concept that could also be successful. So I needed to get to a place in my head where I thought, okay, I'm ready to do this. And if it doesn't work, it's okay because I don't have anything to prove. I believe in this thing so much. And I'm so passionate about it that I want to take the leap. So, you know, around that time, I had already started my own business. I was no longer an employee of NPR. And so that was really it. I needed that psychological kind of feeling of being good enough. And it took me a while. I think it takes us all a while, you know, and I understand that having your first child really had a major impact on how you thought about yourself and your career. Can you tell us about that? In some ways, it was just the most liberating thing that I ever experienced in my life. And I know you're very close with your daughter and I've got two kids, two boys . And when Henry, my oldest son was born, it was weird because all of a sudden, David, all that ambition that was just driving me, you know, to work and to travel and to constantly try and achieve some, you know, unattainable goal, it just evaporated. It was almost as if my career and what I thought I needed to do to get the next brass ring, it didn't matter anymore because I was looking at this child and I understood in my mind that I had one job to do in life and it was to protect this child and to help transition this child into adulthood so they could be independent. And that was it. That was my only role. This was like a biological role. You know, I just, that was it. Humans have been doing this for 300,000 years and I was just part of that chain . What's interesting is that it didn't change my ambition. It changed the way I thought about ambition. So chasing the brass ring became less important, but paradoxically, I became much more successful when I stopped worrying about chasing the brass ring. And that is because I became a father and my focus, the focus of my attention and what became important to me was so clear. That's cool. You know, you always seem to pull the best out of your guests. You know, it's like you bond with them almost immediately. You create this relationship. What do you do to make people feel comfortable with you? I mean, there are a couple of things that I do and then there are a couple of things that I think just happened. So the first thing I do is I spend a lot of time learning about every person I interview, seven to 10 hours of reading for every guest. And I'm doing a lot of interviews every year. So I'm doing a lot of reading. What that signals to a guest is I have respect for you and your life that I've really taken the time to learn about your life because I think it's interesting. And now I want to go even deeper and probe deeper and I want to explore your life with you. And I want to trigger memories that might be buried, not traumatic memories, any details of your life that might be buried that you may have forgotten about because I already have the foundation from which to work, which is I know a lot about you because I've read about you. When people come to the interview and they can sense through my questions that I've taken a lot of time to learn about them, I think that it triggers something in their brain that basically says, you know what, I'm going to talk more or I'm going to give more of myself because clearly this person is, you know, has taken the time to find out about me. The other thing, and this is something that you're doing right now, right, is there are very few moments in our daily lives now where we can be totally present for an hour or two, right? Because we're constantly distracted with social media and with phones and just all the time. And here is a moment where it's you and me, me and the guest, or you and me here. And I'm not looking over your shoulder to see what other guests is at the party or if there's somebody more important or none of that exists. It's just you and me in this tunnel. And I am fully present. And I think that is also it creates a natural connection because the most valuable thing that you can give anybody is your time. And that's what happens. It's not that I have some magical powers. I'm good at what I do, but not because I'm a gifted interviewer. It's because I've been doing this for 25 years. I would hope I would be good at it after 25 years. What it is is it's just being there. It's just being present and listening actively to what somebody's saying. I think that that's what creates the environment for any kind of rich conversation, which of course we hope to have in every episode. One thing that leaders are being told today and people are writing about it is the importance of being a storyteller. You've really got to tell stories to move people and inspire people. And you are probably the ultimate storyteller that I've ever been in my life. What advice can you give to us mere mortals on how to tell a story? And I love that you say mere mortals because it implies that I have some superpower. And I don't. What I try to do with how I built this is to dispel the idea that the founders on the show are superheroes or even wisdom from the top. I want people to understand that everybody starts from a basic place and has to face certain challenges and that what they do today may seem like it's supernatural power, but it's something that they developed over time. And it's important that people understand that because I want people to think that they can do that too. I really want people to be inspired by that. And so in my case, it's not that I have this supernatural gift of storytelling. It's that I've been practicing it for a long time. I think that what I'm very good at is getting other people to be storytellers. So it's really about drawing your story out. And together, we find this natural rhythm of telling the story. But a lot of people will say, I just don't have a story. I've met people who say, I don't have a story or I don't have any dramatic moments in my life. And the reality is that it's just wrong. Every single person, David, that you know and I know that we pass by on the street as a story. Every single person. There were moments of difficulty, trauma. There were moments of incredible joy. Even if you think I had the most boring life, you know, I had mom and dad and middle-class poem and blah, blah, blah, there are still moments in your life where you were vulnerable, where you felt vulnerable, where you were scared, where you had those uncertainty, where you didn't know if you were going to make it, where you had self-doubt, where you failed. And part of understanding your story is really trying to dig into those moments and trying to remember how you felt at those times and how they connect to what you do today. And it's not easy. Most of the stories you hear from founders, I'm helping them articulate them. But when you hear a founder who can tell a great story about their life, like a Richard Branson or Howard Schultz, it's not that that story came out of them fully formed. Over time, they began to understand their story. You know, you probably only began to understand your story in the last 10 years . It's not like you had a fully formed story when you were running Yum, but now with reflection and time, you really start to put those strings together and understand it. So as I say, ultimately, everybody has a story. Every single person does. And it's just a matter of giving yourself time to reflect on the moments in your life that define who you are and help explain who you are. You know, you tell so many of those stories so well in your book, How I Built This, the Unexpected Paths to Success from the World's Post-Inspiring Entrepreneurs. And I'm so glad that the book continues to thrive like it does because you give so much from that book. You know, what did you learn from the process of writing that book that is helping you as you develop into a better leader today? It's really hard to write a book, as you know, have you've written so many and it requires you to make all kinds of sacrifices and hard choices on how I built this? We make hard choices. We cut things down or wisdom from the top. We make choices, but with a book, it's different. I've interviewed now 400 founders and probably 300 or 400 CEOs. And in the book, I can only focus on like 20 of them. It's very, very hard to be that disciplined because I'm naturally, I'm not that disciplined about those kinds of things. I want to talk about everything. I want everything included. And you come to understand and realize that that's not possible, just like with how I built this, the show. The reason why we edited it down to an hour and a half is because we're extracting the best, best moments from that three hour conversation. With the book, it's similar. You know, we had to make difficult choices about what to keep in. You know, I really also had to think very deeply about the lessons that I wanted the reader to walk away from because the book like the show, you know, it's a different proposition in that it's the same that it's in service of the person reading it . But it's slightly different because I'm asking them to spend $14.99 on it, right? So when I was writing the book, I also felt that kind of pressure. I worked with a friend and colleague, Neil's Parker, who is just an amazing person. And together, you know, we were able to really grind down into what mattered. And ultimately, I asked myself the same question I asked about the show, which is, am I giving the person spending $14.99 on this book value for their money? And the answer has to be yes. Because if it's not, I would just be so ashamed. And so that's kind of the beginning and the end of how I approached it. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Guy Ros in just a moment. When Guy talks about doing all that he does in the service of others, it reminds me of the conversation I had with Jim Nance, the legendary sports caster and my favorite broadcaster of all time. I'd like to counter what most people try to do today. Most people will push people aside and trip over one another to try to get credit. And I find that the real shining lights in my life are the people that are looking for credit the least in their heart, their humble. And they realize that all these things happen thanks to teamwork and others. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Jim, Episode 73 here on How Leaders Lead. I want to take you back for a minute and talk a little bit about your upbringing. Tell us a story from your childhood that really helped the most to form the kind of leader you are today. I was from a pretty early age, I would say, 5th 6th grade, really engaged in current affairs. And from a very relatively early age, 7th 8th grade, I was already involved in the student newspapers. And by the time I got to high school, I was the editor of the student paper. I can't say that I was a strong leader that I, you know, I inspired my fellow high school students to rally around. I think I learned that I was sort of a command and control type leader when I was a younger man, really not knowing how to be a leader, but coming to understand over time that that type of leadership and that type of approach is probably the least effective way to achieve a goal that ultimately you want to gather people together in a consensus around your idea. You want to bring them into your idea. And part of that is they have to feel ownership. They have to feel a stake in that idea. And they have to have a say in the conversation before a decision is made. And so for me, you know, I remember in high school, I was the editor of my student paper. I loved it. It was the most amazing, fulfilling thing for me. I would get to school early and lay up the pages and rewrite copy. And ultimately, I was actually ousted. David, I was thrown out as the editor of the paper. And the reason I was ousted was because the editorial staff revolted against me . And they revolted against me because I was a micromanager. I rewrote all their articles. I laid up all their pages differently. I would stay at school until two in the morning to perfect this high school paper. And while I thought I was doing what I should be doing, I came to realize later on as years passed that I was a poor leader, even though the outcome of the product might have looked good, the process of getting it there was not good. And that's just as important as the final product. Guy, I watched your commencement speech that you gave to Pitzer College. And you started out at 8K and you said, I only hope I look like the NPR nerd you imagined. When did you learn the power of self-depicating humor? It's something that I like doing because especially when I'm speaking in front of people, and now when I go somewhere, people recognize me or they think of me in a certain way or they listen to me, I was just at a conference speaking and people come up and say, I'm sorry, do you mind if I take a photo with you and people get nervous? And I understand why because there are millions of people who listen to me. But at the same time, one of the reasons why I do that is because I want to put people at ease. I want them to understand that I am not better or superior or I just happen to have a large audience of listeners, but I'm not smarter. I don't have better insights. I want people to feel like they can approach me. And I'll tell you who's just a master at approachability is Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon, who I've had the chance to be on the show a few times and I've interviewed him in public for events, he is one of the most approachable people you will ever meet and he wants to be that person. He is exactly who you see on the show. He is so famous, one of the probably 50 most famous people in America. And yet you could go up to him in a restaurant and say, Jimmy, and he'd be like , hey, what's like? He walks to work every day in Manhattan and people stop and chat with him and he loves it. And it's amazing and remarkable and inspiring. And I think that trying to find ways to relate to people and for them to understand that you are not some magical superhero is a really important thing. I bet you knew that you'd really made it when you got on the Jimmy Fallon show. It was unbelievable. I mean, several years ago, he invited me on and I was like, I said, is this a mistake? I didn't even know why I am. It was so weird. And so, yeah, I've been fortunate to be on the show several times and it's so weird because one time I was on the show when Madonna was the other guest, she was in the other dressing room. Oh my God. In one dressing room, Madonna. That's the first one I'd love to have lunch with. She's such a marketing person. I've always say, who can I have lunch with? I'd love to have lunch with Madonna. I'd like to learn from her. I've had so much fun with this guy and I got to be respectful of your time. I could go for another hour, but I want to do a lightning round. Let's do it. The three words that best describe you. Passionate, determined and loyal. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be and why? For one day, I would want to be an intrepid adventurer, but not a dangerous adventure, like Charles Darwin, like on the HMS Beagle, like going to the Galapagos and just having a day to be in his brain, observing the world around him. I think that would be really cool. What's your biggest pet peeve? Meetings. Who's your favorite person you've interviewed? It's impossible to answer because it's like, who's your favorite child? And I'd say that very earnestly. I've had a favorite moment with every single person I've interviewed. I am very inspired by all of them and learn so much from them. But one person that I think a lot about is Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy. I'm so inspired by what he did. He created an incredible free platform that educates 50 million people a month for free. That's amazing. How about your toughest interview and why? Every interview is moments that are tough. I had a very tough interview with Dave Anderson, who founded Famous Dave's BBQ because throughout the interview, I was asking him about his life failures. And that's how I built this. I built this as getting amazingly successful people on and asking about their failures. He was getting really frustrated and just really frustrated. At one point, he's like, "Why are you asking me about all the times I failed? Why don't we talk about my success?" We finished the interview. He was really angry and three months later, the episode aired. And he wrote me a note that is so beautiful. I printed it out and have it on my desk. And he wrote this heartfelt email saying, "I was ashamed, I was embarrassed and frustrated at how you asked me about failure." The episode came out last week and I've been overwhelmed at the incredible outp ouring of love and appreciation that people had for the interview. I didn't realize that people wanted to hear my failures and that they would learn from it. I didn't want to buy it and it was so gratifying because that's what I'm after. I'm after. I'm trying to get people to be vulnerable knowing that ultimately it's in their best interest to show vulnerability. Something about you that few people would know. I love to cook. I'm a very good home cook. My one talent, I wouldn't even say I'm a talented interviewer. I learned how to be a good interviewer. I think my natural talent is I'm a really good home cook. David, I'm confident enough in the kitchen, I'm embarrassed to say this because it's going to sound very, very self-aggrandizing. I've cooked for a Michelin 3-star chef and a Michelin 2-star chef in my kitchen at home. I'm looking forward to the invitation. I can't wait. You're invited. Yeah. But your highest aspiration. My highest aspiration is to see my children grow up with a very close relationship, to be really good friends. That's my number one aspiration. I think and I look at people who are 20, 30 years older than me, who have kids who are really close and I say to them, "You have succeeded. You have children who love each other and are close." That is all you can do. If you can achieve that as a parent, nothing else matters. What project are you working on right now that you can't stop thinking about? I'm working on a project for a new show where I will be interviewing actors and musicians. I am so excited about it because I want it to be a different kind of interview show, not a celebrity interview show, but a show that probes creativity and the creative process. I'm so excited. I can't wait for that. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to improve as a leader? The most important piece of advice I would give is to question your assumptions . If you can't do it yourself, find somebody who can challenge your assumptions because most of the time our assumptions and perceptions and the way we see the world is actually not accurate, not wrong, but not accurate. We can only benefit from people who can give us a different perspective. Guy, I have to ask you one more. When did you know you had the perfect broadcaster voice? You know what? It's funny. I never thought that I had a great voice. It's amazing. I have to admit. It's soothing. It's confident. It's unbelievable. It's one of a guy. No question about it. Just like you. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show. I really, really appreciate it. I have to admit, I was very, very nervous to be interviewing the number one broadcaster in the world. David, thank you so much. So great talking with you. I don't know about you, but after 45 minutes listening to Guy's voice, I'm feeling so calm and reassured. Now, I have to ask you, do I have that same kind of effect? No effect on you? No way. But seriously, Guy puts some things into perspective and calls out what I would argue is one of the top traits of great leaders, act in service of others. So this week, here's something simple you can do to apply what you've learned in this episode. Think about this one question. How can you serve the people you lead and your team better? Our job as leaders is to help our teams and our people to be at their very best , to think of others and give them what they need to be successful. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders act in the service of others. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Marissa Thalberg, the chief marketing and brand officer of Lowe's, and the former head of marketing at Taco Bell, where I got to see her creativity and ideas in action. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How leaders lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. [BLANK_AUDIO] [ Silence ]