The 3 Stages of Life To Become Remarkable with Guy Kawasaki

the three stages are growth grit and Grace and like a few minutes ago you were talking about instant success I think instant success from the outside looking in may be true but you know yeah there are outliers and unicorns farting pixie dust but in the real world it's grit I would take somebody with grit over talent anytime 100% and I love you for putting Grace in a business I really do think nice guys finished first I do want to teach the world that you don't have to compromise who you are as a human to have final and business success I love that you have grit and Grace in there attention is the number one asset VOR Nation how are you welcome to the podcast there are very few people on Earth that I'm willing to break New Year's resolutions my New Year's resolution one of the silly ones was to not do virtual excuse me by the way Russian Superstition if you uh sneeze it means what you're saying is true so this is really really working here for me my New Year's resolution was not to do any virtual podcast this year uh guy reached out he's got a new book he's one of the great authors in business and culture and Tech I said guy awesome please come through like I'm really trying to hold the line he goes Gary in Reverse I I'm not traveling which I remembered we've talked about in the past I said I just can't say no to this guy I like him too much I admire him too much so here we are vayer Nation guy how are you my friend I'm good thank you very much for breaking your rule I understand it's a slippery slope and you know I won't tell Adam Grant or I won't tell any of these guys that you broke the rule for me okay I appreciate guy why don't you tell everyone here for the small part of my audience that doesn't know you or your legendary career maybe one minute on that but then more importantly we're here to talk about a new book and let's talk about what it is and what it's about okay I

started my career in Silicon Valley in at Apple basically so after a short career well actually not so short a career in the jewelry manufacturing business where I slep gold and diamonds I went and became software evangelist for the Mac division convincing people to write Mac software and create Mac hardware so I worked at Apple in the Mac Division I left I came back as Apple's Chief evangelist I left I started some tech companies and today I am chief evangelist of canva which is something that Gary and I know and love and I'm gonna make a lot of money on here come the New York Jets baby and also I have the host of a podcast called remarkable people that's what I do right now how many books have you written uh this is the 16th book and Gary I got to tell you something 15 times I said I don't have another book in me this is it and somehow keeps coming if you had told me 30 years ago you're going to write 16 books I would have told you you're nuts speaking of writing

one you know one of the ways that I really became a fan of your work and you as a person there was one era of the modern web that I was not a part of obviously I launched wine library. com in 1997 so it was very early Ecom email marketing Google AdWords and obviously since 2005 every social media or attention Trend I was part of but even though I've written six or seven books in my career the one skill of communication that I struggle with is writing I have two new books coming out a kids book and a business book and all of them are audio you know when I do my books I audio Yeah the era that I missed was this beautiful era in 2003 four five six7 of blogging yeah you were very prolific in that for just two seconds like when you think back to that era pre-social media but there was like you know WordPress and all and blogger and like was that an enjoyable era for you it's me because I love to write and in high school I had an English teacher and he was a real hard ass the most hard ass teacher I've ever had and he instilled in me a love of writing well I use the word instilled Loosely he pounded it into my head and you know one thing I learned Gary and I also learned this from my podcast about remarkable people is that when you look back the coaches and the teachers and the bosses who are the hardest on you taught you the most and you know there's a lot of young people listening to this and you might be tempted to go find that easy Professor easy boss you know easy everything and I'm not saying you're going to regret it but 20 years from now if you're working for a real hard ass like Steve Jobs you're gonna say God that was the best experience yeah I it makes so much sense I think you know I often say adversity is the foundation of success and yeah you know this like maybe it's because we're graying up and every gener and every generation does this I believe it's because these kids are so fortunate to have so many options as they do today that we didn't have but you know people are no question struggling with accountability and struggling to be comfort in adversity or being patient and I think you know you and I are lucky that we grew up in eras where in some ways we didn't have the option even the Steve Jobs and other it did take years we didn't have this instant wealth instant Fame ecosystem literally a kid today will post something mundane and silly on Tik Tok and overnight within 24 hours amass 100,000 followers and start on a journey of being known get a hoodie company dming them and give them $5,000 to wear it and you know and that level of speed and in it's kind of like people that the data around people that win lottery tickets they lose all their money there's less sustained obsession with building something sustainable it's very instant you know ironically guy probably the thing that got me into most of the Silicon Valley's ecosystem today is the 18th anniversary of my first episode of Wine Library TV yeah wow and I did that show every day for five years every day yeah and it was two years before it started to show up on dig or daring Fireball or all you know this goes back to the blog era like showing on Tech crunch or meta filter or all the things that used to create rocket Boom or Discovery anyway nonetheless I'm reminiscing because I

enjoyed my time with you talk to me about think remarkable yeah so think remarkable basically the with the remarkable people podcast I've had about 200 250 interviews with remarkable people like Gary V and Jane Goodall and Neil degrass Tyson Steve wnc Stacy Abrams I bet you never thought you'd hear your name in the same sent as with Jane Goodall there you go g I finally made it my brother and what I figured out looking back over the 220 or so episodes is you know I have 220 hours of great inspiration and information it's 5,000 pages of transcripts but nobody's going to listen that long or that much that's right so my co-author and I Madison nmer we distilled all of that down to70 pages and the filter was my 40 years of experience so this is not an interview book where it's just a transcripts chapter by chapter organized by person this book is organized by stages of life as you become remarkable and the three stages are growth grit and Grace and like a few minutes ago you were talking about instant success I think instant success from the outside looking in may be true but you know yeah there are outliers and unicorns farting pixie dust but in the real world it's grit I would take somebody with grit over talent anytime 100% I mean look you know I was such a poor student and we grew up in an era where like great s were complete definition of if you were smart or not yeah and you know for me in the late '90s into the early 2000s as I started building my dad's business and as I got into my era like and especially when I got into Angel Investing around the time where we met early on I invested in many companies started by kids from Harvard and Stanford and I would be baffled guy because I grew up in a framework where by default I thought these kids were smarter than me and to your point I learned pretty quickly in the mid 2000s I'm like wait a minute this entrepreneurial thing and then it became bigger and I love that used Grace I think one of the things that I'm proud of is I you know this is interesting because obviously you grew up with the legendary Steve Jobs but something that I always had a disconnect with Steve even though I admired so much of what he accomplished was I grew up in a family business where my father was tough on the employees and I was completely the other way and to your point I wasn't easy on the employ EMP first of all I set an example I worked 18 hours a day so you can imagine like even going out to lunch I would make a comment of like what are you doing a half day like it wasn't that I was easy but I was incredibly gracious and kind and I love you for putting Grace in a business like I I really do think Nice Guys Finish First and I do want to teach the world that you don't have to compromise your who you are as a human to have final and business success and I love that you have grit and Grace in there growth is of course very understandable but I I feel like people I'm obviously and you know me pretty well I'm an aggressive Communicator I'm a okay I learned a new phrase today aggressive Communicator I know that I was inspired by Randy the Macho Man Savage and Chris Rock and Richard PRI I can see in the way I communicate being affected by things I consumed as a kid but I like that kindness and empathy and compassion and grace are making it into the Lexicon of success yeah you know Gary as I look back I'm 69 years old so I figured out in the first third of my life I was underpaid in the second third I was overpaid and now it's time to pay back and I think you know when I die I want people to say that I help them make a difference and I don't mean you have to be J Goodall or Steve Jobs making a difference can be to just one person you know one kid you Mentor one classroom one team one stream One River you know one street and the way that it works and I hope people understand this that this is not a typical self-help book where you know in 48 hours I can teach you how to be remarkable that's a lie the way it works is if you make a difference if you make the world a better place people will start considering you remarkable so the way it works is you do good you'll be considered remarkable it's not because you woke up one day and hired a PR firm to position you as a remarkable person I couldn't agree more brother and look you know this you're a bright man we got fortunate you and I have some similarities which is we have our Ambitions and we have our like any human we have our selfish wants but the reason we've both consistently communicated for decades now is there's something within us that likes us to share you don't share as consistent as you have when it's just what's in it for you because you scratch that itch when you have something that's selfish or that's in it for you it eventually becomes abundant and it becomes boring for someone like you who've been who's been communicating for over 20 years now publicly consistently back to blogging early T we were there you know all the books written I mean to put it in Gary V

terminology it takes a lot of energy to be an it's much better to be a nice guy it's a lot easier than an and if you're an you are clearly hurting inside that's the part that kids learn when they get into their 20s 30s 40s 50s it takes everybody some everyone's on a different track but what you realize is I realize all the people that are mean or angry or trolling or when I encounter them in real life short or abrupt or inappropriate it's 100% a reflection of what's going on in their own souls and for me I don't know how to be upset for myself when I'm met with Darkness I'm only Built parented and luck of the DNA I default into compassion for them yeah I mean I think I you know it may be Gary that you are you're third generation or second generation America your first I was born in the Soviet Union guy you were I was brother so now obviously I came I was very young I was four but I grew up I mean I lived in a studio apartment with seven eight family members in Queens New York for a couple years when we first came like I went on one family vacation we stayed in a holiday in my entire childhood like I really lived it so my gratitude is off the charts yeah so you know you have kids now right yes and like I'm third generation and I worry about this so you must really worry about this because it seems to me like every succeeding generation they're getting it easier and I'm not saying I suffered and you know I had a I came from a lower middle income family so I wasn't right poor but I wasn't rich and I don't want you know I worry yeah well I'll tell you why and I'm sorry to jump in I apologize for jumping in but let me say this because I want to give you some flowers regardless of where someone starts their Journey what you represent I mean there's people who are third generation upper middle class but they were the fourth generation or the fourth generation they were the individual that took the family to the Moon right there's some people doing gen one gen two gen 3 as you know many you know the thing you probably worry about I mean I do like we see the ups and downs of what the dollars do but like it's not that you grew up quote unquote poor but let's call it spade a spade you over the last 50 years of your career have changed the trajectory financially of your family and you're the one who sees it most up close and personal of the biggest di it was a slow and steady climb you created that multiple jump and you can see it and you see what ends up happening with prosperity and America has had unlimited Prosperity now for a long time a lot of families go through it is the thing that most people struggle with that work for things they see entitlement up close and personal yeah entitlement and lack of accountability drives people that are accountable crazy you called it bro you called it real and so look you know again and then I mentioned it earlier the thing that the kids have kudos to them I mean my mom and I joke all the time that if I was growing up right now in this era where you could start a Shopify store and have a Tik Tok she even said a joke the other day she's like forget about college definitely not you wouldn't have graduated gone she goes but forget about high school she's like I'm not even sure if you would have graduated middle school she's like because by fourth and fifth and sixth grade I was checked out selling baseball cards like I think the other thing that I have a lot of empathy for these kids they don't want to go work at Kmart you know or Starbucks for 15 or 20 bucks an hour they literally know that in their hands the devices started by the pioneers of technology that you grew up with have given them so many goddamn options my big thing to the kids is if you're not winning with all these options then you need to be accountable and realize you suck not the world tough love from Gary V baby a little bit it's you know if you have all these options and you don't want to do this grind work because you have all these options and then you're not winning don't blame the algorithm don't blame the audience don't blame your parents blame yourself that's how you'll actually get there yeah so let's go

back to remarkable talk because we're just having fun because we enjoy each other like talk to me about the things that really stand you've really been around remarkable people you've obviously got the podcast interviewing so many of them so you've been thinking about it you're writer mind analyzing pulling out what give me here on the podcast like one thing that is very obvious to you that might be a little more subtle or if it's tried and true and cliche which one is like oh my God this is the this is one of the things for damn sure well for damn sure every one of the people that we interviewed the remarkable people we interviewed they had a growth mindset they did not believe that you know they are what they are they cannot be anymore nor do they did they believe they cannot be any less so they were always trying to make progress they're always trying to learn new skills they always had intellectual curiosity and they seldom if ever rested on their Laurels and never get high on your own supplies yeah they never I you know to my knowledge I don't have any billionaires on my podcast certainly not any hedge fund managers yeah and I think to your point I mean I think a lot of people that have that DNA they I actually think they enjoy the game like for me there's many behaviors I do that is not maximizing my wealth it's maximizing my enjoyment of being a builder yeah well you know at the end of the day Gary I mean what do you want people to say about you and what do I me and it's not because you bought the New York Jets or it's not because I donated a building to Stanford which I'm not going to do um you know seriously if I had Boku bucks like that like you know like donate building bucks I would give it to the community college system of California that's who needs the money that's right I think one of the things that has kept me from often publicly talking about what I do in nonprofit is I just watch everyone use nonprofit as a thing to build themselves up right to your point if you're gonna donate Stanford's the last place that needs it you're doing that for you because walk by the campus that you learned from and it's obviously an amazing institution but you want to see your name there and I get it you want your grandkids to see like I think it's highly valuable but if you're really trying to really make an impact there are many I mean by the way that's how I got into the two boards I'm on pencils of promise and sh water all their work is done predominantly in Africa and all done predominantly on things that make no sense to me which is it is 2024 and 850 million people on Earth do not have access to clean water how can that be that's how I get excit like look there's things there's a tornado or an earthquake or there's many things in America that but man that one I will I don't know like every night like I think a lot I think about a lot I'm like how is that like clean water I I live in a community of Farm Workers and I support an organization called digital nest and the whole premise of this organization is to give Hispanic kids an alternate career path than agriculture don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong in agriculture okay but you should have options so they teach kids digital skills in the middle of a farm area and that is a beautiful thing and that's my call you know I'm not giving money to Stanford there's not even a brick at Stanford with my name on it much less a building guy before we get out of you know get here

know get before we get out of here what can people one of the things I'm very proud of is even though I have very poor reading comprehension and I learn by listening and watching this podcast is a pretty aggressive book buyer and so I anticipate a lot of people picking up think remarkable by Guy kawazaki who's this four have you in the people that have read it around you given that you've written 16 incredible books is there like is if somebody's listening right now either the value prop or the for instance or the scenario that you think is a complete no-brainer because I agree with you the thing that I'm most fascinated by is books are so inexpensive to be a concise yeah capture of a moment my new book also a per got a lot of purple mine right this when I tell you guy no day trading attention that comes out I think in May is literally what I'm running the strategy of my $350 million marketing agency it's our competitive advantage and I'm literally to the best of my ability putting the most updated information in detail yeah for like 20 bus so I always think books are the best deal of information out there still in a weird way so in this what is the answer to that question I have for you is this is a 170 pages that takes the wisdom of 250 remarkable people filtered by someone who's been on the front lines for four decades to give you a manual or a handbook or using Apple vernacular oh read me first for life this is it this is this is the book that I want to be remembered for that it helped Jen Z figure out how to be happier yeah and you know what H not happier in the sense of now you can buy a big house and a German car happier in the sense that I think what makes people truly happy is that they made a difference not that they made money and I also say that if you make a difference you will probably also make money well that's right because everyone's Counterpoint is like easy for you two guys to say you've made money and I get it the problem is you and I are I mean you look phenom for 6 so are you doing makeup no it's not are you doing something big for 70 you know what I Gary I seriously I am such a lucky person like okay I'm deaf but you cookler implant kind of helped that so there's worse things to be then nobody ever B died from deafness right so I I just as I said before when I die I want people to say that I help them make a difference that's it that's what I want my legacy to be and this book is going to do it good news you already did it you didn't need this book I mean that guy listen you know this we've interacted a dozen plus times at this point on through the years on speaking stages and we even did a book signing together I think at South by one year and you know I I'm saying this out loud because I want everyone to hear how I feel from the first time we met to today It's always important to me that I give you flowers because you represent an era of communicators that became something that I did as well not as early as you and I believe it became a foundation of our society which is normal human beings got to become the Walter kronites Prof like the internet changed the world and created meritocracy around humans that had good spirit every one wants to focus on what it allowed bad people to do you know you and I especially in know5 6 S 8 nine 10 there was so much focus on what it was allowing good people to do and I think you're one of those good people and I think you will be remembered fondly with or without this book coming out because you've put in the work over the last three decades you just have thank you anything Gary your blessing on this book means the world to me because I know you're such a hard ass and you don't tolerate so your fans to read this book news will guy honestly the thing I'm really St I'm actually very proud of it I'm shocked how many people reach out to me and talk about the bump on sales and you know I'm a businessman so like I'm not scared of Commerce Entrepreneurship I'm not scared of you know things selling and I'm very proud of that they just will I know this audience um I know that as you know what you did that is especially remarkable how many pages 170 yes I mean again people that have you know I don't have reading comprehension but the people that do like the speed in which they're going to be able to this a one night book for some people yeah which is massive and very you know that was actually the biggest concern of mine I decided to like put out my best secrets of social media and creative and so it's actually pretty dense by my standards I would even argue has parts that might be the most boring of anything I've ever done in book form but it required it but I think what you're doing here is a snackable and definitely a weekend or a spr you know when's this coming out guy March 6th yes so I think again I've always liked my books that came out that time of year because people really read during spring break so I think you're gonna get a lot of that kind of action anyway think remarkable by Kaki uh and uh Madison right like we gota she's in there we got to give her love looking forward to having the feedback from much of my community who Reddit I wish you well health the best day we'll talk to you soon guy all right Gary thank you so much take care stay well bye