Meikles & Dimes

Rich Diviney is a retired Navy SEAL Commander, who completed more than thirteen overseas deployments—eleven of which were to Iraq and Afghanistan. In his 20 years as an officer and SEAL, Rich was involved in the specialized SEAL selection process, which whittled a group of hundreds of extraordinary candidates down to a few of the most elite performers. As the officer in charge of training for a specialized command, Rich also spearheaded the creation of the SEAL "Mind Gym" that helped SEALs perform faster, longer, and better, especially in high-stress environments. Since his retirement, Rich has worked as a speaker, facilitator, and consultant, training more than five thousand business, athletic, and military leaders. Rich shares his work on his website, theattributes.com, and in his excellent book, The Attributes. In this conversation, we discuss the following: Being in charge and being a leader are two separate things. The former is a position; the latter is a behavior. We don’t get to self-designate ourselves leaders. Other people decide whether we are someone they want to follow, and they do so based on the way we behave. “If you call yourself a leader, and you look back and there's no one following you, I’ve got bad news for you.” “I was always in charge of something in the Navy. But whether or not I was a leader depended on how I was behaving and what the people in my span of care thought of me.” “There have been people who outrank me hierarchically, and I wouldn't follow them anywhere. And meanwhile there's someone over there by the water cooler who has no hierarchical rank whatsoever. And I would follow that person to hell and back because of the way they behave.” You can manage and supervise people, but no one likes to be supervised. They want to follow a leader. One of the most important leadership behaviors is accountability. I own my decisions. And I own the consequences thereof, whether good or bad. As a leader you can always delegate responsibility, but you can never delegate accountability. Rich was commanding officer of a NAVY seal squadron and had delegated the responsibility of the jump to a new jump master. As a result, they missed the mark badly. But Rich owned the results, even though he had delegated the responsibility of the jump. When we take accountability, we increase our control. When we blame others, we give up control. Leaders aren’t born or made, according to Rich. They’re chosen, based on their behaviors. And one of the most important behaviors for leaders is accountability. Accountability puts us in the driver's seat, compared to blame, which immediately cedes our position to the back where we give someone else control.   Follow Rich: Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichDiviney Follow Me: Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

Steve Young is a Hall of Fame QB, two-time league MVP, Super Bowl Champion, and Super Bowl MVP. And when Steve retired from football, he was the highest-rated quarterback in NFL history. After football, Steve worked as a broadcaster for ESPN and ABC for more than two decades on NFL shows such as Monday Night Countdown, NFL Countdown, and as co-host of ABC’s Superbowl pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows. As a businessman, Steve co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital, a multi-billion-dollar private equity firm that has completed more than $50 billion of transactions. Steve has also been a corporate spokesperson for companies such as Toyota, Marriott, Visa, and Nike. As a philanthropist, Steve founded the Forever Young Foundation: A global charity for children who face significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges and provides them academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities.  Steve earned both his B.S. and J.D. from Brigham Young University. In this episode we discuss the following: Accountability versus mitigation. Screwing up in front of 80,000 people. The truest truth. The question every losing quarterback has to answer after every game. How to be a great leader. What Ronnie Lott did when Steve's teammate told Steve, "You suck!" How competition is sacred ground. How to live abundantly. Steve's Books: The Law of Love: https://amzn.to/489eTXZ QB: My Life Behind the Spiral: https://amzn.to/45ISr6q Follow Steve: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteveYoungQB Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steveyoung/ Follow Me: Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

Todd Rogers is a Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. His work: supports student success and attendance; strengthens democracy; and improves communication. Todd earned an undergraduate degree in religion and psychology from Williams College, a master’s degree in social psychology from Harvard, and a PhD in organizational behavior from Harvard.  In this conversation, Todd talks about: Less is more. Be brief if we want people to read what we write. People skim, and 99% of people are more likely to read short text compared to long text. Plus, brevity is kinder to the reader. Design for how people read. We read headers, we jump around, we go as fast as possible. So, use headers, bold words, and bullet points to make it easy for people to get main ideas quickly. To write so people read what we write, use the AI model which has been trained on Todd’s principles. Run your text through his model at www.writingforbusyreaders.com. Think addition by subtraction. We improve our writing by subtracting unnecessary words and sentences rather than adding more. Readers are skittish. If you use big, uncommon words, they may run away and never come back. Subtraction neglect: ask people to improve something, and the vast majority of the time they will add things. People too often fail to think that they can improve by removing and subtracting.   Follow Todd: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-rogers-6ba447/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Todd_Rogers_ Buy Todd's Book here: https://amzn.to/3OY2PjN Follow Me: Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

Annie Duke is a World Series of Poker champion, having won more than $4 million in tournament poker. In 2004, she won the World Series of Poker bracelet and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions.  In 2009, Annie was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice, where she took 2nd and raised more than $700,000 for her chosen charity. She is the author of Thinking in Bets, a national bestseller, and Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away. Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and she recently completed her PhD. She is also the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education.  In this episode, we discuss the following: Quitting isn’t a bad thing. With whatever we’re doing, don’t be afraid to say, “I don't love it” or “I loved it, but I no longer do” or “I still love it, but I think there might be this other thing that I love more.” All decisions are probabilistic, so it’s important to continually sample.Try a bunch of stuff, figure out what you like, and then keep trying a bunch of stuff. It’s hard for us to leave paths without feeling like we’ve failed. Luckily for Annie, she was forced to try other things when she got sick during her PhD program. And then sampling poker led her to becoming a world champion. Then she realized she liked writing books, giving talks, and running a foundation. Just because something survives a fact check doesn’t mean it’s true…true in the sense that it’s the right model of the facts. If the stock market drops 3,000 points in one day, people might say it’s the largest drop in history. But that would only be true in terms of total points, not true in terms of percentage. Given that every decision we make is a forecast, the quality of our decisions are only as good as the way that we’ve modeled the information that is inputted into the forecast. Annie has developed two questions that are fantastic for modeling facts:  “Out of how many?” and “In comparison to what?” By asking ourselves these two questions we will improve our models and make Annie happy. Follow Annie: Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnieDuke LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/annie-duke-professional-speaker-&-decision-strategist/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_annieduke/ Annie's Books: Thinking in Bets: https://amzn.to/3PjJ33s How to Decide: https://amzn.to/3OW0UMv Quit: https://amzn.to/3qM9aqu Follow Me: Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/  

Luke Babbitt is a graduate of Top Gun and served in the US Navy for 10 years as an F/A-18 pilot. He then graduated from both Stanford Law School and the Stanford School of Engineering. After graduation, Luke worked at Goldman Sachs for five years as Vice President before founding Jordan Park where he was first Chief Operating Officer and now partner. In this conversation, Luke talks about: Doing fun, exciting things early in life where you can make a name for yourself, independent of your upbringing. For Luke, that meant being a Top Gun pilot, flying single seat F/A-18s, which he described as being in a wrestling match, while driving a race car, and playing a video game, all at the same time. Flying fighter jets meant Luke developed self-reliance and confidence as he learned to land the $70 million aircraft on a tiny dot in the middle of the ocean, while his performance was broadcast on every TV on the ship. Leaving the military, at the top of his game, to attend Stanford Law School was humbling, and taught Luke the value of interacting with people who think differently than him. Specifically, Luke learned the value of not rushing decisions, and slowing down his decision-making process when possible. When choosing a career, solve for the thing you’re interested in. Prioritize passion over paycheck. When other service members started talking about Goldman Sachs, Luke had never heard of the firm before. But he soon realized Goldman was full of interesting, smart people, in a dynamic field. By joining Goldman, and later founding Jordan Park, Luke was able to work with some of the smartest, most accomplished entrepreneurs of the last 20 years. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” But Luke’s approach to his career was a pretty good bet. Take risks when young, learn from others along the way, and don’t just take a job for the money, but rather prioritize interest and excitement.  Follow Luke: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucas-babbitt-53a08a11/  Follow me: Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/  

Rob Holmes is the founder and co-owner of Eco-Cattle, a ranch in northeast Kansas that raises grass-fed meat using regenerative agricultural processes. Before founding Eco-Cattle, Rob was a biology professor at Hutchinson Community College. Rob earned a PhD in plant biology with a minor in biotechnology from North Carolina State and an undergraduate degree in botany from BYU. To learn more about Rob and Eco-Cattle, visit https://eco-cattle.com/.

Jeff Strnad, Stanford Law Professor and psychotherapist, teaches courses on mental health law, game theory, Bayesian statistics, cryptocurrency, securities, taxation, and finance law. Before joining Stanford Law School, Jeff was a professor of law and economics at the California Institute of Technology. He received an undergraduate degree from Harvard, a law degree from Yale, and a PhD in economics from Yale.

Dan Siciliano is Co-founder and CEO of Nikkl, Inc as well as the current Chair of the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks. He's consulted with Boards of Fortune 500 companies including Google, Microsoft, Fedex, & Disney, and invested in, and advised, firms in Silicon Valley, Hong Kong, India, and Latin America.  His teaching includes Finance, Governance, and Venture Capital and he has testified in front of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. From 2009-2011, alongside Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, and Carl Icahn, Dan was named to the “Directorship 100” – a list of the most influential people in corporate governance. He was co-founder, CEO and Executive Chairman of LawLogix Group – a technology company named nine times to the Inc. 500 and ranked in the Top 100 fastest-growing private companies in the US. In 2006, Dan co-founded the Stanford Rock Center, and as Associate Dean at Stanford Law School, led the Center until 2017.  Dan is a first-generation Mexican-American, and he chairs the American Immigration Council. He is a board member at the Latino Corporate Director Education Foundation and is a policy expert and activist on issues of immigrant/refugee rights, corporate and boardroom diversity, and related matters of economic development. I hope you enjoy learning from Dan Siciliano today, because I always do. 

Ryan Westwood is an entrepreneur who has built multiple companies including Simplus, where Ryan was named one of the best CEOs in the country. Ryan has also sold multiple companies, and in 2020, Ryan sold Simplus for $250 million. Ryan is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, and he is the best-selling author of the book Five Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur. Ryan is also an active philanthropist, helping disadvantaged youth attend college and succeed as entrepreneurs.

Dave Ulrich is a world-renowned Professor at the Michigan Ross School of Business, partner at the RBL Group, and one of the most recognized and influential leaders in Human Resources. The recognition Dave has received is staggering:  Dave was Ranked the #1 most influential person in all of HR by HR Magazine, one of the 10 most innovative and creative thinkers by Fast Company, one of the world’s top five business coaches by Forbes, and the #1 management educator and guru by Business Week. And in 2012, Dave received the Lifetime Achievement Award from HR Magazine for being the “father of modern human resources.” Dave has published 30 books and over 200 articles, and served on the editorial board of numerous academic journals. Dave also served on the board of directors of Herman Miller for more than a decade. He has presented his work in 90 countries, consulted with more than half of the Fortune 200 companies, and coached countless successful business leaders. I hope you enjoy learning from Dave Ulrich today, because I always do.