Ryan Hawk: Daily Leadership Habits That Shape Who You Become | Leadership | E408

**Hala Taha** (0:00)
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**Ryan Hawk** (2:21)
You're not entitled to anything.
Nobody, literally nobody cares how hard you work. They care about the value you can provide to them. That's just the way the world works. You can say, well, no, that's not right. No, that is right. That is how the world works.

**Hala Taha** (2:37)
Today, Ryan Hawk is here to tell us the truth about becoming great. Ryan is a host of The Learning Leader Show and a best-selling author who has spent years studying how elite performers think, work, and lead.

**Ryan Hawk** (2:49)
I think people are willing to start, they're not willing to keep going. The difference between the ones who sustain excellence and the ones who do not is the willingness and the ability to get up and keep doing it day after day after day after day.

**Hala Taha** (3:05)
So much of success early on is about imitating other people who are already doing what you want to do. Talk to us about the importance of not being afraid of copying, especially initially.

**Ryan Hawk** (3:16)
Imitate, then innovate. One of the greatest bands of all time started by copying others verbatim. The Beatles, they were afraid to play their own music initially, and eventually, they got really good at playing together, at getting their reps together, playing other people's music that they would start to sprinkle in their own. The key though is you got to get started. Even if when you get started, you're going to copy somebody else, that's okay.

**Hala Taha** (3:43)
As an individual contributor or somebody who has a boss, how do you have to act differently as a leader?

**Ryan Hawk** (3:49)
When you're just the player, the individual, you have a specific task and your job is.

**Hala Taha** (3:57)
Ryan, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

**Ryan Hawk** (4:00)
Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

**Hala Taha** (4:02)
I am excited for this conversation. We're both podcasters, we both interviewed hundreds of people on our shows, and we know that there is a price tag to success. Everybody wants to highlight real, everybody wants to talk about the outcome, nobody wants to talk about the price it takes to become successful, and that's actually the title of your book, The Price of Becoming.
Let's start there. Why did you call your book that and what are some of the big things that you've learned about The Price of Becoming?

**Ryan Hawk** (4:30)
Titling things are really, really hard, and so our mutual friend and book agent, Dave Moldaware, who was helping me with my proposal, especially when I got stuck, we were just throwing out ideas of things that have really moved me. I'd written actually a big chunk of the book before even titling it.