Business

Over the last 20 years, I’ve spent half my time in Founder/CEO-mode and the other half in Philosopher-mode. Before going all in as a Philosopher, I built and sold two market-leading social platforms (raising $10m in the process). In this class, I share my Top 10 Ideas on how to create a great business and get paid to change the world. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, solopreneur, small business owner or leader in any organization, we hope you love it.

Alden Mills joins us as a guest teacher for this class! Drawing on over 25 years of high-performance leadership and team-building as a three-time Navy SEAL platoon commander and CEO of one of the INC Magazine’s fastest-growing consumer products companies in America, Alden illustrates his essentials for high-performance leadership and introduces us to 10 Big Ideas from his newest book, Unstoppable Teams, including his most successful leadership framework called C.A.R.E.

Peter Drucker is considered the father of modern management. This book was originally published in 1967. It’s *remarkably* well written and lucid. And, of course, packed with Big Ideas on how to optimize our effectiveness. We cover the 5 key practices/habits of the effective executive: time (first things first; second things never!), contribution (what can you contribute?), strengths (make yours productive; make weaknesses irrelevant), concentration (the secret to effectiveness), decisions (boundary conditions help).

I planned to read this book since Cal Newport referenced it in Deep Work. I finally did so in preparation to teach Productivity 101. It’s fantastic. If you’re a business leader or entrepreneur I think you’ll particularly enjoy it. Big Ideas we cover include the 4DX, the whirlwind, your Wildly Important Goals, Lag vs. Lead measures, the power of keeping score, and avoiding the blackhole of the magnificently trivial.

Ray Dalio is one of the most successful people alive. In fact, Time magazine says that he’s one of the 100 most influential people on the planet while Fortune magazine tells us his company (Bridgewater Associates) is the 5th most impactful private company in the U.S. and Forbes tells us that he’s one of the 100 wealthiest people on the planet. All of which makes Dalio, to use his words, “believable” when it comes to discussing how to get what we want in life and work. Enter: Principles. Big Ideas we explore: how to evolve, what’s most important, meet the shapers, Principles #1 (Embrace reality and deal with it) + #2 (5-Step process to getting what you want in life), and the two AI’s: Artificial Intelligence + Ancient Intelligence.

Dan Pink is a brilliant writer. His books have been translated into over 35 languages and have sold over 1 million copies in the US alone. We featured another one of his New York Times bestsellers called Drive. That one is all about “The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.” This one, as per the sub-title, is all about “The Surprising Truth About Moving Others.” The super-short story? Although only 1 in 9 of us technically earn our living as “salespeople,” we’re ALL in sales. In other words: To sell is human. Big Ideas explored include the new ABCs of sales: A is for Attunement, B is for Buoyancy, C is for Clarity) and how to master a servant-selling.

Little bets. Peter Sims tells us they’re a LOT wiser than bet-it-all-and-pray big bets. He shows us the wisdom of the little bets approach via fascinating stories highlighting the extraordinary success of everyone from Chris Rock mastering a performance to Pixar creating their ingenious films. Big Ideas we explore include how to build our growth mindset muscles, going from suck to unsuck, smallifying, creating small wins and doing things to discover things.

Shane Snow is a journalist and entrepreneur who takes us on a fascinating tour of “How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success.” The book is packed with stories capturing the ascent of everyone from young Presidents, Jimmy Fallon, and Elon Musk—and, of course, the “Smartcuts” they used to get there. Big Ideas we explore include: the power of progress, failure as feedback, creating a deep reservoir, stripping away the unnecessary and 10Xing our thinking.

I just love his no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point approach. His words pack a wise punch. We already profiled another one of his great books, The Total Money Makeover, and I’m excited to have some fun taking a quick peek at a few of my favorite Big Ideas from this equally great book: EntreLeadership, where he shares his best “practical business wisdom” he’s learned “from the trenches.” Big Ideas include understanding that you are the problem (and the solution!), the importance of passion and vision, and how it takes about fifteen years to be an overnight success. Good stuff!

I got this book after I saw General Stanley McChrystal’s blurb on the back of Ryan Holiday’s Lives of the Stoics. I read it in one 8.8-hour Deep Work-filled day. It’s fantastic. McChrystal uses Plutarch and his profiles of some of history’s most prominent figures as his inspiration and focuses on thirteen leaders in six pairs plus one standing alone. Almost all leadership books are prescriptive in nature. This book is not. Rather than make us believe that there’s a nice, simple recipe for leadership, McChrystal, Eggers and Mangone present us with the “myths” of leadership and the MUCH MESSIER “realities” of leadership. After the profiles of the thirteen leaders, the authors present the three myths of leadership and their new definition of leadership. We end the book with the sober recognition of just how complex, dynamic and context-specific good leadership is. It’s a challenging, important book that’s difficult to distill into a nice and tidy and practical 6-page Note but I’m excited to share some of my favorite Ideas as we all continue to step up into our own idiosyncratic expressions of Heroic leadership. So... Let’s get to work!

Kevin Kruse is a Forbes Leadership columnist and successful entrepreneur. He’s built and sold several multimillion dollar technology companies, winning both Inc 500 and Best Place to Work awards along the way. He’s also written a number of bestselling books. I got this book after a long-time student and Heroic Coach connected me with Kevin. Apparently my new friend was being interviewed by Kevin about his new book on creativity for a Forbes article. At the end of their chat, my new friend told Kevin that he should check out Heroic. And, apparently, he had JUST signed up for Heroic the day before. (Awesome.) This book, as per the sub-title and intro quote, is all about the top productivity habits of some of the world’s most productive and successful people. It’s written in a straight-forward, conversational style. There’s a reason it has over 1,400 reviews—it’s fantastic. It’s packed with Big Ideas. I’m excited to share some of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!