671: How to Recognize Remarkable People, with Guy Kawasaki

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
Oh, don’t we all wanna be surrounded by remarkable people? One piece to building relationships with them is recognizing when they come across our radar screens. In this episode, Guy Kawasaki on some of the key indicators for noticing remarkable people. This is Coaching for Leaders episode 671.Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:42]:
And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. You know, one of the things that I think we all want in our lives and in our professional relationships is the ability to know, be connected with, and be influenced by remarkable people. And being able to recognize those folks, to learn from them, to be inspired by them, I think is the hallmark of a great leader. Today, I’m honored to have a guest with us who himself is a remarkable person. Perhaps even more importantly though, is so gifted at having built remarkable relationships with so many of recognizing people and continuing to learn and grow from them. I’m so pleased to introduce Guy Kawasaki. He is the chief evangelist at Kava and the creator of Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast. He’s an executive fellow of the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley and as adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:41]:
He was the chief evangelist at Apple and a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation. He has written Wise Guy, The Art of the Start 2 point o, The Art of Social Media, enchantment, and 11 other books. He’s now the author of Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference. Guy, what a pleasure to have you.

Guy Kawasaki [00:02:02]:
Oh, what a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much, Dave.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:05]:
I’m starting this conversation where you started the book, and it’s with Apple. Back in the late nineties, you’re back at Apple. You are sitting in the room with Steve Jobs, and the ad agency comes and presents the copy for the think different campaign. And I’m gonna read it for those who don’t know it. Here’s ad copy from think different: “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:43]:
But the one thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.” One could argue, given Apple’s trajectory since then, that is the best ad copy ever written. And I think that one of the reasons that resonated so well is that so many of us are inspired by remarkable people, and we wanna be influenced by them. And we wanna have a connection to them, don’t we?

Guy Kawasaki [00:03:22]:
Well, I mean, you know, I I think that the people that you are keeping company with are the people who influence you. And I would also it maybe sounds harsh, but I think that lousy people tend to bring you down rather than you bring them up. So you should always try to hang out with remarkable people.

Dave Stachowiak [00:03:49]:
Yeah. Indeed. And the thing that I think is so brilliant about the book is you have looked at your life experience, of course, studying and having relationships with so many people. And you’ve really identified and laid the groundwork for us of how do you recognize people who are remarkable and what are they doing? And one of the things you point out is that they reflect back to childhood. And you write, remarkable people often recount their childhood experiences in order to explain where they ended up. What’s significant about that?

Guy Kawasaki [00:03:48]:
Well, what’s significant about that is that you are cognizant of how you got to where you are. And that is a big barrier to this entitlement syndrome. People with the entitlement syndrome, they don’t remember where they came from. They think all of a sudden they’re it and they deserve it and the world revolves around them. So I tell the story, I come from a lower middle class part of Honolulu. And if it wasn’t for a 6th grade teacher convincing my parents to put me in a private school that led to me getting into Stanford, that led to me getting hired at Apple. I would not be a guest on your podcast today.

Guy Kawasaki [00:05:16]:
And so that you know, I remember that it’s because of that 6th grade teacher. You know, that was a pivotal moment in my life.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:15]:
It made a difference, and I think it’s interesting if, like, there’s an element there of humility that a remarkable person has of, like, I didn’t do this myself. I’m not a the the lie that some people tell themselves a self made woman or a self made man. It is a community. It’s humility that got me here in in part.

Guy Kawasaki [00:05:44]:
Yeah. I mean, it well, if success has many mothers and fathers, but the concept of a totally self made person, I guess, is possible. But I think it’s, I mean, it’s not optimal. And behind every self made person, I’m sure there are remarkable people who helped along the way. And it could be a teacher, a coach, a parent, a friend. People don’t become remarkable in a vacuum. And that’s an important concept that you’re not born remarkable. You you become remarkable.

Dave Stachowiak [00:06:25]:
Which is a good lead in to one of the points you make really strongly in the book is that remarkable people don’t find their passions. They develop them. And I think a lot of times, we hear the message well intended, find your passion. And you write, “Find is the wrong word because it implies that once you find something the process is over truly you develop your passions. It’s rarely love at first sight.” You see that often with remarkable people, don’t you?

Guy Kawasaki [00:06:57]:
Yes. Yes. All the time. And I think that this emphasis in modern American society on finding your passion is a mistake. It sets the fence too high. It it an inaccurate portrayal of how life works. And it’s as if that, you know, you’re you’re 19 years old. You’re applying to college.

Guy Kawasaki [00:07:21]:
How can you have not found your passion yet? You haven’t started a a not for profit to help poor people. You haven’t built a school in Africa yet. You haven’t won a MacArthur Fellowship or a Nobel Prize yet. You know, what’s wrong with you? And so people are, like, hunting for this passion. And my recommendation is that instead of being on this quest for a passion, you just keep an open mind and you do a lot of sampling and you find things that interest you. And when you find something that interests you, you scratch that itch. And thank you, God, that if you scratch enough itches, someday you may discover your passion. But until then, just chill out and just do a lot of sampling.

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:13]:
You’ve interviewed a lot of people who have done this, who have followed that path, scratched a niche. Right? Found the next one. Who inspires you on this that, you know, has really been on a great journey of developing their passion.

Guy Kawasaki [00:08:28]:
Well, by far, the people in my book and the people in my podcast who you just sort of have to scratch your head and say, you know, how did they do this? I mean, it’s inconceivable to me, some of these stories. And the book is about thinking remarkable and about remarkable people. It’s not about rich people or famous people. Okay? We need to make that straight. There are no hedge fund managers in my book or my podcast. And I think some of the most dramatic stores are people who grew up in the projects, both parents, crack addicts, parents stealing from their kids. The kids, they had to move 30 times during their youth. Another artist, who is arguably the next Jean Michel Basquiat, sentenced at 16 to last something like 40 years of prison for murder he did not commit and wasn’t an accessory to.

Guy Kawasaki [00:09:31]:
He’s in prison for 22 years. He’s released, And now he’s a thriving artist. I mean, he’s completely, completely seized the day. And when you read stories like that, do you think, oh, what am I complaining about? And so believe it or not, I’m deaf. And the only reason why we can do this podcast is because of the miracle of a cochlear implant. And I’m a podcaster like you. And let’s just say that being a deaf podcaster is not ideal. And when I tell people this, some of them are just amazed that I can be a podcaster and public speaker while deaf.

Guy Kawasaki [00:10:10]:
But then I hear these stories of both parents’ crack addicts, prison 22 years. Another woman, she got diagnosed with ALS 10 years ago. Usually, people die after 2 years. She got diagnosed and she decided to complete a marathon in all 50 states. So when you hear those kind of stories, you’re saying, you know, what’s the big deal about being deaf? And I think that’s a good attitude if you wanna be remarkable. You you cannot wallow in your mire.

Dave Stachowiak [00:10:43]:
Yeah. It’s really I mean, the the the woman you mentioned, I forget her name in the book, who did all the marathons with ALS. It’s just an extraordinary story. And I was struck by a couple of the indicators that you mentioned in the book on how do you notice people who are developing those passions? And one of them is they maybe studied something academically, but they’re working in an unrelated role or an unrelated industry, and they’re willing to change industries, they’re willing to change functions, they’re willing to try new stuff, it’s it’s often the hallmark of someone who’s open to doing that, of developing and finding and learning and growing, isn’t it?

Guy Kawasaki [00:11:27]:
Yes. I mean, there is no better description of a growth mindset than for people to have started on one path and then change completely. It shows an open mindedness. It shows the ability to embrace vulnerability because when you try something new, typically you’re not that good when you start at it. So it might affect your self image, your public image. You have to push past that. One of the stories I tell is because I never heard this before, but Julia Child started as a copywriter for a furniture store in New York. Then she went to work for the organization that became the CIA.

Guy Kawasaki [00:12:13]:
So basically, Julia Child was a spook until her thirties. And then she moved to France and fell in love with French cooking. So she went from copywriter, to spook, to French chef, television star, author. And I mean, can there be any more proof of a growth mindset than someone who would do something like

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:37]:
that. Mhmm. Mindin. Related to that, you say remarkable people make themselves indispensable, and you write, do what nobody else wants to do, do whatever is necessary no matter how unappealing it is a great way to show that you’re valuable and to separate yourself from the pack and I think back to all the folks whose careers I’ve watched guy over the years and the leaders who move up and do lots of really cool things, oftentimes, they are people who have worked across the organization, across different functions. They have jumped in when something needed to be done. They really have made themselves indispensable.

Guy Kawasaki [00:13:14]:
Yes. And let’s give credit to where credit is due. I came upon this wisdom with an interview with Andrew Zimmern, Andrew Zimmern, he had that TV series, bizarre foods, where he goes all over the world, eating stuff that let’s just say most people wouldn’t eat. And I was asking him about his career. He grew up in Minnesota. So, apparently, in his teenage years, he was you know, he had some issues with drugs and stuff, and he cleaned himself up. And he actually was an intern at 3 different companies at once.

Guy Kawasaki [00:13:55]:
One of which was the TV station. And one of his mentors told him that if you wanna get ahead in life, you become indispensable. And the way you become indispensable is that you are willing to do things that others don’t want to do. And so you become very valuable at some function. And pretty soon, the organization can’t do without you. And he actually got 3 job offers out of 3 internships, which got to be some kind of record. And, and that’s why we know who Andrew Zimmern is today.

Dave Stachowiak [00:14:32]:
Yeah. The mindset there is so powerful of being able to do that in whatever role you find yourself in, even if it’s not the one you wanted. And you also have this point that remarkable people aren’t trying to save the world, which is counterintuitive in a way when you think about it. But you write “Remarkable people don’t usually start with grandiose plans of crushing or dominating the universe. They start with small and simple questions that over time yield the result of making a difference.” That is counterintuitive, isn’t it?

Guy Kawasaki [00:15:10]:
It may be counterintuitive, but it’s realistic. And, yeah, oftentimes, if you loo at Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, you think, oh, these people, they’re so remarkable. When they were 2 guys in a garage, they had this whole plan for Apple that we would have Apple 1, Apple 2, Apple 3, Lisa, Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, iPad, retail stores, Genius Bars, App Store. And, you know, they had this grand plan. But the reality is Steve Wozniak, he was building an Apple 1 because he wanted a personal computer, not a computer you had to work for the government or a university or a large company. He wanted something small and cheap and easy to use. He didn’t have this grand plan of, you know, worldwide domination, $1,000,000,000,000 company. He just wanted to make a computer he could use.

Guy Kawasaki [00:16:12]:
Fortunately for him and Steve, there are lots of people who also wanted personal computers. And so I think you do yourself a disservice if, you know, you sit down and you see these moguls and these extremely successful people and you think, oh, look at how much they dominate. I need to come up with a dominating plan like that. And the answer is no. You don’t. You really don’t. You just start small. To use another cooking analogy, don’t try to boil the ocean.

Guy Kawasaki [00:16:47]:
Just boil the pot and then get a bigger pot and they get more pots, but don’t start with the ocean.

Dave Stachowiak [00:16:46]:
Yeah. It’s so true. I mean and I think I see this in leadership development too, guy. Like, the the programs, the development processes that people do that try to do lots of things at once to shift folks’ behavior. You follow-up 2, 3 months later, a year later, and a lot of times people aren’t doing a lot differently. But if you zero in on one thing to shift behavior on, it’s interesting, like, there’s something powerful about just one thing at a time, focusing on something small, taking a small step behaviorally. It just gets us farther in the long run. It’s counterintuitive, but it it’s just like you said, it’s reality.

Guy Kawasaki [00:17:32]:
Yeah. And and you know what? I mean, let’s face it. If you decide you wanna have worldwide domination, well, odds are you’re gonna fail. And then where are you? But if you just decide, I wanna make a computer, I’m gonna make this device. I’m going to change one life. I am going to change one classroom. Or my 6th grade teacher, she changed my life. I’m just one speck of dust in the universe.

Guy Kawasaki [00:18:03]:
She didn’t decide to become secretary of education. She just convinced Guy’s parents to put them in a private school. And that’s why I am where I am. And so I think to use a surfing analogy, one day, let’s say you have a growth mindset and you decide, listen. I play tennis. I play basketball. I wanna try a new sport. I’m gonna go try surfing. Step number 1 is not to go to Nazare or pipleline and try to surf a 100 foot wave.

Guy Kawasaki [00:18:38]:
The way you start surfing is you get a really long, thick, stable board, and you find an instructor, and you go to some place where the waves are 1 to 2 feet. That’s how you start. You don’t go for a 100 foot wave. You don’t even go for a 10 foot wave. You go for a 1 foot wave, and you go from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. That’s actually where I stopped, but, you know, the way you get to a 100 foot wave is through the 1 foot wave.

Dave Stachowiak [00:19:10]:
Yeah. The path to being remarkable in a way is unremarkable. It’s simple. It’s small. Right?

Guy Kawasaki [00:19:18]:
That I love that. Sure. I wish I thought thought of that. Yeah. The the path to being remarkable is unremarkable. It’s really paved with grit and growth.

Dave Stachowiak [00:19:30]:
Yeah. Well and speaking of maybe being a bit unremarkable is, you point out that people who are really remarkable, they one of the practices they have is they’ve got a routine, especially how they start their day. They do things the same way. What is it about that that works?

Guy Kawasaki [00:19:48]:
Yeah. I mean, the extreme example of this is Julia Cameron, who is the queen of creativity. She wrote the artist way. And one of the things she tells everyone to do is start with this morning writing journal, you know, several pages, longhand, pen on paper. And listen, I don’t have, I can’t tell you that scientifically, I have data that proves this, but I think it’s pretty common that remarkable people are disciplined. And, you know, they’re not all over the map. They’re not, like, freaking out every day. And I mean, I’ll tell you my habit.

Guy Kawasaki [00:20:29]:
So my habit is I get up and I make one cup of coffee pour over style, in my Melita filter, and I have one slice of wheat toast or 9 grain toast with peanut butter and a banana. I do that almost every day. And the beauty of that is that’s just one less thing to think about. What should I eat? Where should I go? And when you see all these people who are CEOs and stuff, and they always wear black mock turtlenecks, or they’re always wearing a hoodie, Yes, they probably are fashion challenged. But I got to tell you something. When you wake up in the morning, you say, Ugh, put on my hoodie, go to work, put on my black mock turtleneck, go to work. That’s just one less thing to think about, and there are more important things to think about.

Dave Stachowiak [00:21:26]:
You write on this “rather than vacillate between about what to do first, you start every day with the same activity. The goal is to get in motion and save your brainpower for important choices.” So key. Speaking of brainpower, one of the practices of remarkable people you’ve noticed is that they hire people better than themselves. And I was struck by what you wrote about during your time at Apple. You write the Macintosh division had a rule. You had to hire only A players. That is people who were as good or better than the rest of us, and you add, that’s evidence of arrogance for sure.

Dave Stachowiak [00:22:03]:
Our thinking was that A players hire A players or even better A plus players. And I was thinking about that, and one thing that’s really wonderful about remarkable people, getting back to our distinction of what’s on they they notice what’s unremarkable about them too, and they’re willing to find people who are better than them and work with them, and they make that work, and they’ve made peace with that, haven’t they?

Guy Kawasaki [00:22:32]:
Well, they have. I mean, in fact, it’s more than making peace. They see that as a viable path that I think that if you’re a manager or your CEO, you should be able to look around the room at your meetings and say, you know what? Everybody here is better at their function than I could ever be because the rising tide floats all boats. And I wanna add a nuance to this A players, hire A players or A plus players, because I believe I didn’t fully develop the concept until about 2 weeks ago. And that’s long past the book deadline. So a lot of the the first third of the book is about the growth mindset and how to acquire the growth mindset and and perfect it and embrace vulnerability and learn by miss from mistakes. But that implies that the growth mindset is something between your ears. It’s in your head.

Guy Kawasaki [00:23:39]:
But I think just as important is while the work of Carol Dweck is the growth mindset. Remember the name Mary Murphy. Mary Murphy is a protege of Carol Dweck and her perspective and the value add she has brought is that it’s not just your personal mindset. It’s also the environment you are in. Because if you are in a growth mindset environment with a growth mindset, then you can really do well. But God help you if you have a growth mindset and you’re in a fixed mindset organization where people believe that you are what you are. You cannot learn. You cannot be trained.

Guy Kawasaki [00:23:38]:
You cannot gain new skills. You’re either a genius, or you’re not a genius. And and I don’t think that is a accurate nor optimal representation of the world.

Dave Stachowiak [00:24:39]:
There was a saying that I heard in grad school. I went to grad school for organizational leadership and behavior, and one of the sayings was if you put a good person in a bad system, the system will win every time.

Guy Kawasaki [00:24:51]:
Yeah.

Dave Stachowiak [00:24:38]:
And Yes. I don’t know if that’s literally I mean, there are notable exceptions to that. Gandhi, Jesus. You know, there’s definitely some exceptions, but I think for a lot of the time, that is true. Who we surround ourselves makes a difference, a big difference. And it’s one of the reasons you point out too that remarkable people interact with a diverse group of people. And in fact, you say their social media accounts are probably a window into their soul. You do really get a sense of a person just by looking at who they follow, who they’re listening to, who they’re connected with.

Guy Kawasaki [00:25:23]:
Yep. I truly believe that. And one one of the things that frightens me in these recent developments is this anti DEI thing that, you know, we’re not supposed to teach about diversity. We’re not supposed to teach about slavery. We’re not supposed to teach black history. And if you think about it, if you have everybody singing the same song, thinking the same things, you’re setting yourself up for failure. You are going to be blindsided. And, when you when you look at it, if you’re outside of a company looking in and you’re thinking of joining that company, you absolutely should figure out, do they have a growth mindset? And the evidence of growth mindset is, first of all, diversity in their employees.

Guy Kawasaki [00:26:14]:
Secondly, do they have learning and development programs? And 3rd, ask the recruiter, you know, do you value growth and learning, or do you only value immediate results? In other words, are you trying to find geniuses who already know everything and instantly have results? Or have you come to the realization that people can become better and better? So you hire “good athletes.” I mean, athletes in quotes. You hire good athletes who can learn and develop and be better. And, and I’m telling you, you should look for those kind of signs. And if you really wanna get a rise out of the recruiter, just ask the recruiter, Is it all right to ask stupid questions in this company and see what he or she says? And you know what? If if I may add something, many of the people listening to this audience, they’re the decision makers. Right? They’re the CXO level. And they either make the hiring decisions or they heavily influence them.

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:22]:
Yeah.

Guy Kawasaki [00:27:21]:
So you know what? Ask yourself, in this organization that I run. Is it okay to ask stupid questions? Because if it’s not, you need to rethink your position because I’m not saying there are no stupid questions, but a lot of simple, stupid questions lead to very good results.

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:44]:
Indeed. Guy Kawasaki is the author of Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference. Guy, thank you so much for your perspective and your inspiration.

Guy Kawasaki [00:27:59]:
Thank you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:06]:
If this conversation was helpful, 3 related episodes I’d recommend to you. One of them is episode 567, how to lead and retain high performers. Ruth Gotian was my guest on that episode. She’s done a ton of research over the years on high performers and how to work with them, how to lead them. Some of the most remarkable people that we’re gonna work with are the people that we lead. A lot of advice from Ruth on that episode on how to lead high performers well because they are different than the typical employee episode 567 for that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:41]:
Also, I’d recommend episode 525, how to strengthen your network. Marissa King was my guest on that episode.. We talked about the different kinds of ways that we all tend to build networks. And it turns out there’s 3 really distinct kinds of ways that show up in the research on how many of us do that. And most of us tend to migrate to one of those preferences. And oftentimes, we think about building a network and we look at lots of other people on how they’re doing it, and we don’t necessarily think about our own preferences and strengths. Marissa in that episode walks through with me some of the ways to think about that, how to recognize your strengths and how you build your network and to lean in on that substantially. Episode 525 for that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:27]:
And then finally, I’d recommend episode 644. Help your team embrace growth mindset. Eduardo Briceño was my guest on that episode, and we talked about the importance, of course, of growth mindset as most of us have heard and as echoed in guys’ work and in this conversation. But what we don’t often think about is how do we actually do that with an entire team, an entire group of people to support growth mindset there and episode 644 Eduardo and I looked at how we can do that better, not only through our mindset, but also our practices and expectations with an entire team. If that’s on your radar screen right now, a good compliment to this conversation for sure. All of those episodes you can, of course, find on the coachingforleaders.com website. If you have not set up your free membership before, I hope you’ll take a moment to do that because when you set up your free membership, you’ll be able to get into the library of all the episodes that have been aired since 2011 and to find what is relevant to you right now. One of the places we’re filing this episode under is networking. We have had many conversations over the years, including the one I mentioned a moment ago with Marissa, but many others that’ll be helpful to you, but lots of other topics as well. Full access inside of the free membership.

Dave Stachowiak [00:30:47]:
In addition, also access to my book and interview notes. Every time I read a book, at least most times when I can get access to it, I, am writing out the notes that I’m thinking about when I’m talking with guests just as I did today with Guy. And I’m also capturing some of the most useful highlights from their book. In Guy’s case, I’ve detailed out some of the key indicators for remarkable people, some of them that we didn’t have a chance to cover on the conversation today. I’ve got those in the PDF download of my book and interview notes for almost every episode. It’s one of the benefits of free membership. You can find that on all the episode pages. But when you log in your free membership, there’s a whole section for book and interview notes.

Dave Stachowiak [00:31:30]:
The entire library is database there over the years of all of those I’ve captured for all the books and interviews in recent years. One of the key benefits of free membership. Go over to coachingforleaders.com, set it up. And if you’re looking for more, a great way to get more perspective from remarkable people to lean in more on our guests that are on this podcast. There’s so many remarkable people who come on the show. I feel so privileged every single week to be able to have these conversations and bring them to you. And one of the things I love to do is be able to get our guests experts in conversation with our members directly. Every single month, our academy and pro members sit down for a live conversation with one of the guest experts who’s been on the show in the recent past.

Dave Stachowiak [00:32:16]:
We record those conversations, and we make them available to all of our Coaching for Leaders Plus members. If you’re a member of Coaching for Leaders Plus, you already get an email from me once a month with that recording, more details, and opportunity to really hear more from some of our guests. If that’s something that’s of interest to you, it’s one of the key benefits inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus. To discover more, go over to coachingforleaders.plus. You’ll find out about those expert chats and so much more inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided this week, as it always, is by Sierra Priest. Next Monday, I’m glad to welcome NASA astronaut, Mike Massimino to the show.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:02]:
He’s gonna be talking with us about setting the tone for speaking up, critical skill set for us to have in our roles in organizations. Join me for that conversation with Mike, and I’ll see you back on Monday.