710: Ravi Gupta - The Anti-Dabbler's Guide to Mastering One New Skill Every Year, Why Presence Isn't Enough, Bourdain's Masterclass in Humility, and Pairing Reasonable Goals With Delusional Ones

Ryan Hawk (0:01)

Applications are now open for our next Learning Leader Circle. You can go to learningleaderscircle.com to apply. I thought it would be helpful for you to hear from some current members of my Learning Leader Circle. Here they are.

SPEAKER_2 (0:17)

I chose Learning Leader Circle because I wanted to be around really winning professionals, people killing at work, but even better people.

Ryan Hawk (0:25)

Ryan does such an amazing job of vetting the group. It's all A players. It is all amazing rock star people who want everybody to become their best and just add value to the group.

SPEAKER_2 (0:37)

We have people with agriculture backgrounds. We have people with white collar backgrounds, blue collar backgrounds, people in education.

SPEAKER_3 (0:43)

The totality of the room is very impressive with the amount of knowledge we have to be gained, but when you sit down and you break out with five, six, seven people, you can have that intimate, that in-depth conversation that allows you to go a little bit deeper.

Ravi Gupta (0:55)

We got additional coaches this year.

Ryan Hawk (0:58)

They live their lives according to what they teach.

Ravi Gupta (1:01)

These guys will all jump in and get you back on course.

SPEAKER_5 (1:05)

Definitely do it. Don't think twice about it. Know that you're going to leave with new relationships, new takeaways to make you better at your job, better as a parent and as a person. So it was just a very intimate, very inclusive environment.

Ryan Hawk (1:26)

To apply for our next Learning Leader Circle, go to learningleadercircle.com.

Welcome to The Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now, on to tonight's featured leader, Ravi Gupta founded Republic Schools, whose flagship Nashville Schools became the first in Tennessee to rank in the top 5% statewide for both growth and achievement. He worked on the first Obama campaign and wrote speeches for UN Ambassador Susan Rice at the United Nations. Today, he runs The Branch, a media company fighting polarization. His new book is called The Invisible List, One Passion a Year, Every Year. During our conversation, we discussed why you should choose one new passion to chase each year and commit to it. Ravi has done this for the past seven years and it has changed his life. Then he shares his unique goal setting philosophy. He likes to set one delusional huge goal and then one that's more reasonable. We talk about how this could be potentially helpful for you. And then Ravi shares a useful piece of advice he got from Neil Strauss about setting boundaries. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Ravi Gupta.

I'm glad I got you early in the Book Pub Podcast Tour because you probably have more energy now than maybe you will a few months from now.

Ravi Gupta (3:25)

I'm fresh and idealistic. But I am actually injured because this is relevant to the book. So I tore my bicep tendon a couple of weeks ago surfing. This is not a great sales pitch for my book, but I might as well be honest. In the past two years, I fractured my wrist playing tennis, which is a chapter of the book. I've ruptured by bicep tendon surfing.

And then one unrelated to the book is I dislocated my shoulder eight months ago motorcycling. And that's not part of the book. That was just totally accidental.

And those are the only three injuries I've ever had in my life. All on the same arm, all in the past two years.

Ryan Hawk (4:02)

Ooh, surgery on the bicep, you have to get surgery?

Ravi Gupta (4:05)

Yeah, I was in Costa Rica. I went for two weeks. I was looking at the waves from here in New York. And I was like, oh, wow, there's two weeks of perfect waves that are down the line. And so I flew to Costa Rica. I had not surfed since I dislocated my shoulder.

So I was like, okay, first wave back. I misjudged a wave, hyper extended my arm, tore my bicep on the first wave back and had to fly back and get surgery a couple of weeks ago. I actually couldn't type until like a couple of days ago. So I was without typing, which I'm a writer like you, which is torture, couldn't work out, couldn't play sports. So I was very much feeling sorry for myself. So I've just emerged from a few weeks of pity partying. And now I'm ready to go and I have never stored my self-confidence and energy. So had you caught me a couple of weeks ago, I would have been on like painkillers and just totally sad and immobile.