Ep 660 | The Two Traits Great Visionaries Share

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Last month, I had the unique opportunity to attend, uh, for the second year in a row, uh, I attended the All In Summit in LA. The All In Summit is based around a podcast called The All In Podcast, my favorite podcast. I've mentioned it here at No Days Off. And the hosts of The All In Podcast, the 4 of them put on a summit each year with the biggest names in business, entrepreneurship, government. I mean, you name it, it's the world's most accomplished CEOs and investors. It's a lot of people who we would deem maybe already made it. However, that's not what stood out to me. Their success is not what necessarily stood out to me. What stood out to me as I was sitting in that audience was the imagination and the curiosity of these, these top, top people. They were so impressive in the success they've had. But if I felt like I was in the wrong place, you know, a very small fish, it was this room. And what made me feel that way more so than anything else had to do with the level of thinking that these individuals possessed relative to what I believed to be mine. Again, I looked at their imagination and their curiosity. These individuals, they weren't content with how things are. I think they're super obsessed with what could be. There was a number of phenomenal speakers, but, but 4 in particular made this, this, this fascination with imagination and curiosity made it crystal clear to me. Alex Karp from Palantir, Adena Friedman from Nasdaq, Cathie Wood from ARK Invest, and Paul Levesque, better known as Triple H. From WWE. These 4 people— and again, there was a dozen plus others that were equal if not better than these 4— but these 4, when I went back to my notes, really, really seemed to be insanely curious and imaginative relative to the general population. And, and these 4 are in completely different industries and they have completely different personalities. But they did all share one identical pattern. Every single one of them thinks bigger than most anybody I've ever been around. I think we should unpack that a little bit. You know, what they maybe showed me or displayed to the audience, and then talk about how you and I can maybe build the same level of imagination and curiosity into our own lives. Alex Karp. Not sure if you're following Alex Karp, but a huge personality. And what I, what I wrote down about Alex was the way he expressed curiosity with conviction. What do I mean? Alex Karp is probably one of the most fascinating leaders in the technology space. He built a company called Palantir, which is a massive organization, a data-driven intelligence company that works with governments and corporations, often in spaces with, you know, filled with a lot of what I would call ethical landmines. Most CEOs avoid those types of conversations, but Alex Karp seems to run towards them. He doesn't just ask, "Can we build it?" He also asks, "Should we?" And to me, that's curiosity arguably at the highest level. Not just exploring what's possible, but interrogating the implications of possibility. I think his imagination sits at the intersection of data and defense and democracy. I mean, seriously, it, it sits at that intersection, and he's relentless in challenging assumptions, including his own assumptions. It's a reminder to me that, that what I would say is true curiosity, it's not about just collecting information. It's about confronting complexity, which leads me to Adena Friedman, who had a sense of imagination but with structure. When Adena Friedman took the stage, she didn't just talk about the NASDAQ that she leads as— she didn't just talk about NASDAQ as a stock exchange. She actually talked about it as a technology company for the financial world. And as a layperson, I just saw the Nasdaq as another stock exchange, but she didn't view it that way. It's a technology company. And she's reimagining markets that have existed for centuries by asking things like, what if transparency, liquidity, accessibility weren't limited to public entities? What if private markets operated in real time? Open to all investors all of the time. I think that's imagination expressed through infrastructure. See, Friedman isn't content with managing an old system. She's actually rebuilding the architecture of, of global finance. And I think that's a future where AI and, and tokenization and, and transparency, where they all merge. I think it's a perfect example of of disciplined imagination. She dreams super big, but she builds within the rules of math and code and economics. Cathie Wood was one of the most interesting people we got to hear from, and I would say that she had a curiosity that defies consensus. Cathie Wood has built a career at ARK Invest, and she's built a fortune for that matter, by being early by being contrarian and be— and by being unapologetically curious. When other people doubted electric vehicles, she bet big. When people dismissed genomic sequencing, she doubled down. Her entire philosophy at her company ARK revolves around researching the fringes of technology, where, where innovation feels absurd before it feels obvious to everybody else. And what really drives Cathie above everything is curiosity. She studies human behavior. She sees where technology converges— convergence happens. She looks for exponential change, not to predict markets necessarily, but to imagine what humanity might value a decade from now. And her imagination is fueled, from my perspective, by courage. Curiosity without courage would be more browsing, but curiosity with conviction can actually change industries. And the last person I was going to mention, maybe the most interesting of the bunch, was Paul Levesque, who's Triple H for those that know the World Wrestling— I was going to say Federation, but WWE Entertainment, right? WWE's— he's WWE's Chief Content Officer. And he reinvented what I would call, what I would say was storytelling. He's from an entirely different universe from all these guys, yet his message fit perfect. While other people see WWE as just this goofy entertainment, Paul talked about storytelling as this emotional technology, a way that he could connect millions of people through struggle and through redemption. He's not just managing talent or events, he's curating a culture. He asks questions, he asks questions like, what makes people care? What makes them feel something week after week after week? To me, that's curiosity, the kind that, that studies emotion and psychology and human drama. Curiosity, when you, when you look at it from Paul Levesque's standpoint, it's not something that's just for the scientists or the CEOs, it's for the storytellers too. So now let's get to the crux of why I'm talking about this today. I, I watched these individuals and I couldn't help but leave the All In Summit and think, Man, how could I become more curious and more imaginative? So, of course, I did a deep dive. And having heard again these 4 leaders and others, it made me realize that imagination and curiosity aren't necessarily personality traits. They're probably more disciplines than anything. They can be trained. Here's what I'm thinking around in order to become more curious and imaginative for myself. Number 1, I think we have to ask what if every single day. Ask what if. Maybe an idea, set a 5-minute timer in the morning or at night or whenever's convenient for you and pick one constraint in your world, one constraint. Maybe it's a business model or a habit or a belief, and then ask what if it didn't exist, or what if it were 10x bigger or 10x faster or easier or different? Asking these what-if questions is something I bet all of the individuals that spoke at All In, I think they're probably doing that because all of them, I, I have to believe, are, are partially curious because they suspend disbelief. They think everything is possible. Number 2, I think in order to be curious, a bit more curious and imaginative, you got to expose yourself to other worlds. Alex Karp thinks like a philosopher. Uh, Friedman, she thinks like an engineer. Cathie Wood thinks she's, uh, or thinks like a futurist. And, and Paul Levesque thinks he's a movie director. In other words, they cross-pollinate. They, they, they study or read outside of their lanes. So I think for all of us, if we need to spend some time around people who think think in what I would call different mediums. They think differently, or they work in, say, finance or art or policy or sports, and it's just outside the scope of what it is we know. That diversity will fuel your imagination. Number 3, I think you gotta stay in the question. What do I mean when I say that? Most people rush to answers. What I've learned is that visionaries really linger in the unknown. So, when you're faced with uncertainty, resist the urge to solve it immediately. Instead, just sit in it, which is really freaking hard to do, but just sit in it and then ask, what else could this mean? In other words, maybe use time a bit more to— in your favor. And then number 4, in the spirit of becoming more curious and imaginative, protect your wonder. What do I mean when I say that? Curiosity tends to die in busyness. So schedule some space to think. Maybe that's going on some long walks or long drives or just sitting in silence. But every major insight at that All In Summit, I think, came from leaders who still have got to be protecting their thinking time in a world, especially their worlds, that are addicted to noise. So make sure you protect the opportunity for your mind to wander. In closing, When I left the All-In Summit, I didn't necessarily leave inspired by the status of individuals or the, the wealth accumulated by many of these individuals. I left reminded that the world's best thinkers share two unteachable-looking but trainable traits. They stay curious and they let their imagination roam further than their comfort zone allows. Alex Karp wrestles with moral complexity. Adena Friedman rebuilds invisible systems of money. Cathie Wood bets on the unimaginable. And, and Triple H reinvents the art of the story. These are all different games, but they're the same mindset. So here's the challenge this week: stop trying to have all the answers and just start asking better questions. And imagine further than feels comfortable right now. Just let your mind go. Imagine a bit further because the future doesn't belong to the smartest person in the room. This future, in my opinion, belongs to the most curious and most imaginative. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]