654: Jake Tapper - The Most Important Leadership Skill, Handling Criticism, Chasing Your Curiosity, Understanding Tradeoffs, Responding to Rejection, and Being So Good They Can't Ignore You

Go to www. LearningLeader.com https://www. LearningLeader.com for full show notes This is brought to you by Insight Global https://insightglobal.com/learningleader/. If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. www. InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader https://www. InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Guest: Jake Tapper is an award-winning broadcaster and chief Washington correspondent, currently anchoring The Lead with Jake Tapper every day on CNN. He's also the #1 New York Times best-selling author of 7 books, including The Outpost (which was later made into a movie), Original Sin, and most recently Race Against Terror. Notes: Be So Good They Can't Ignore You. Jake: I'm in control of how hard I work. It is our responsibility to work so hard that we become the obvious choice for the job or the promotion. Be So Good They Can't Ignore You. "I had to be so good that even though maybe on a broadcasting level I wouldn't be the number one pick... they had to give it to me." The one leadership skill that is massively important to develop… Don't insulate yourself with "yes" people. You have to have truth tellers in your life. Who are your foxhole friends? Who are the people who are willing and able to tell you the truth? Who are the ones who love you and care about you enough to let you know when you've messed up? Those people are gold. We all need them. Rejection: Dr. Seuss was rejected by 47 publishers. Rejection is part of life. You have to stay in the game for a chance to win it. Keep going. And nobody will give you a job to be nice. What value do you bring to a company? How will you make your boss's life better? You get hired to solve a problem, not because someone wants to be nice. Pinned tweet since 2017 – "To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." -- George Orwell. A reminder to see obvious truths being obscured by spin or wishful thinking. "You Can Always Tell Them No" - Ted Koppel's crucial advice to young Jake about maintaining journalistic integrity and not compromising values for opportunities. This became a career-defining principle that Jake still follows 20 years later. The Jar Jar Binks Theory of Leadership - Successful leaders often remove critics from their inner circle, creating dangerous echo chambers. "Great people often achieve as much as they can to the point that they are able to remove from their inner circle anyone who tells them they're being an asshole or making a wrong decision." Constructive vs. Destructive Criticism - Jake learned to distinguish between useful feedback and personal attacks: "Very few of my critics are people that I actually care what they think... folks who understand I'm just trying to be a good faith operative here." Curiosity as Career Driver - Deep curiosity drove Jake from reading microfiche about MASH as a kid to investigating complex stories as an adult: "I find something interesting and I wanna find out everything I can about it." Rejection as Constant Reality - Even at his career peak, Jake faces daily rejection: "I get rejected every day... it doesn't matter that I've had New York Times bestsellers before... it's part of life." Humility Enables Learning - Accepting expertise gaps allows growth: "Having the humility to accept that I am not an expert on any particular thing... I'm a journalist, which means I try to be an expert on whatever I'm covering at that moment." Leadership Lessons From Powerful People The Inner Circle Problem: Leaders systematically remove critics until surrounded only by yes-people, creating dangerous blind spots. Jake witnessed this pattern with Joe Biden (surrounded by aides and family who weren't honest about his declining acuity) and across industries. The Solution: Intentionally maintain truth-tellers in your inner circle who care about you personally but will challenge you professionally. Creating Truth-Telling Environments: Jake encourages healthy disagreement with executive producers, acknowledges power imbalances that make criticism harder for junior staff, and creates indirect channels for feedback ("some people on the staff think..."). The Criticism Paradox: Public leaders face constant harsh criticism, making them naturally defensive. Understanding this context helps leaders distinguish between constructive feedback that improves performance versus personal attacks that serve no purpose. Following Curiosity Despite Opposition Jake's major works were all advised against by professionals: The Outpost (no military expertise) The Atlantic story of freeing a wrongly imprisoned man Biden book (started the day after the election, despite uncertainty) Key Insight: "Every single one of them, people were telling me not to do it... It's been following my curiosities even when people told me I'm not interested in that." The Hard Work Advantage: Jake couldn't compete on appearance or natural broadcasting ability, so he outworked everyone: broke stories constantly, used blogs when he couldn't get on air, and made himself impossible to ignore through sheer output. Dealing with Rejection Expect constant rejection even at a career peak Don't take rejection personally unless there's constructive feedback Use rejection as data, not judgment of worth Keep creating regardless of immediate acceptance The Wave Metaphor: Like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, timing the waves - "every code can be cracked" if you persist and find the right timing. Key Elements for Writers: Strong structure: "Act one, chase your hero up a tree. Act two: throw rocks at your hero. Act three, get your hero out of the tree." Good editor who pushes back - be willing to "kill your darlings" Life Philosophy The Acceleration Mindset: At 56, Jake is speeding up output: "I don't know how much longer I have this window where people are paying attention... relevance is ephemeral... when it leaves, it looks fucking brutal." For Young People: "So much of life is rejection... You cannot stop it... don't take it personally." Focus on developing skills and delivering value: "Nobody will give you a job to be nice... They'll do it because you have something they want." Time Sacrifice Awareness: Success requires acknowledging costs: "What I cried about is the stuff I missed that I wasn't there for because I was chasing a story or on assignment." Time Stamps: 02:46 Jake's Dedication to Influential Figures 05:05 Hot Mic Moment in Alaska 06:59 Preparing for Big Interviews & When to Follow Up 09:01 Dealing with Criticism 12:07 The Story Behind Jake's Pinned Tweet 13:48 Race Against Terror: The New Book 18:29 Balancing Multiple Roles 20:47 Chasing Your Own Curiosity 23:58 Sacrifices for Career Success 29:00 The Importance of Humility in Leadership 31:08 Surrounding Yourself with Truth Tellers 34:18 Healthy Tension in Team Dynamics 37:15 Understanding the Pressure on Public Figures 40:09 Empathy in Leadership 45:17 Balancing Career and Family 49:00 Advice for Aspiring Journalists and Writers 52:01 The Reality of Rejection and Hard Work 57:26 The Importance of Structure and Editing in Writing 01:01:16 End of the Podcast Club

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ryan Hawk?

  We have just opened applications for our once per year Learning Leader Circle. I just got a testimonial from, I think, one of the most impressive members in my current circle, Alex Feldmeyer. She is a sensory sciences manager, wickedly smart, but this is what she said about being a part of our Learning Leader Circle. She said, "Our Leadership Circle meetings are experiences that go unmatched with anything else in my life. The biggest part is learning that we have so much within ourselves to catalyze massive potential, but we often don't know how to access it. This group is about learning how to unlock

• 0:42Ryan Hawk?

  it, live it, and most importantly, sustain it. With the carefully crafted discussion points and the intentional people around us, it's like being invited to a machine that gives us the tools to harvest our own superpowers." So cool. If you want to apply to be part of our next Learning Leader Circle, go to learningleadercircle.com to apply. That is learningleadercircle.com and apply today.

• 1:16Ryan Hawk?

  Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. 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. Jake Tapper is an award-winning broadcaster and chief Washington correspondent, currently anchoring The Lead with Jake Tapper every day on CNN. He's also the number one New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Outposts, which was later

• 1:56Ryan Hawk?

  made into a movie, Original Sin, and most recently, Race Against Terror. During our conversation, we discuss the one key leadership lesson he's learned over his

• 2:10Ryan Hawk?

  Decades long career interviewing presidents, generals and other world leaders. This was really good. And then Jake shared how he handles all of the criticism he receives, as well as how he thinks it's important to listen to feedback, even sometimes from strangers on the internet. And then he shares some useful advice he learned from Steve Martin on how to build an excellent career. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Jake Tapper.

• 2:46Ryan Hawk?

  So you opened your book, you dedicated it to 12 people, including Diane Sawyer, Ted Koppel, Charlie Gibson, Peter Jennings, and you write, quote, "Thank you for the lessons."

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:57Ryan Hawk?

  What are some of the lessons that you've learned from them?

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, a lot of lessons from all the people and probably each one of them deserved their own book dedication, but who knows how many books I'm going to write. And sadly, some of the people on that list are no longer with us. Peter Jennings, David Carr, Tony Off, Jim Wright. So I wanted to at least get some recognition for them while they're all still here. An example for Ted Koppel, one time saw on the in-house channel a pilot that ABC News was working on with me and Bill Weir in the period when Koppel was kind of being pushed out the door

• 3:38Speaker 01

  by ABC. And Nightline was questionable, how long was it going to last? And Bill and I did a pilot and Ted saw it and I don't think he was particularly impressed with it and probably thought we were being a little glib. Looking back on it, we were definitely being a little glib. And he took me to lunch and he said, you remember, you can always tell them no. You can always tell them no. And that was a lesson that obviously here I am 20 years later or whatever that that is something to remember. The other thing, the other note is when you're done negotiating the salary, put as much vacation day in there because they don't understand the importance of it because it's not a monetary value. So get as much, as many vacation days in there as possible. That's another one.

• 4:22Ryan Hawk?

  Is it hard to take days off though, in your world?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  It is. And in, in the Trump era too, especially because every day, because he, you know, whether you like him or not, he makes a lot of news. He creates a lot of news. It was something that we had to learn in our, in his first term. And I still think it's probably questionable as to how much we've learned it in our second, but just if you miss this news emergency, there's going to be another one next week. Like it's okay if you miss it. And for people metabolistically built like me as a, as a news person, it is difficult to be away from a story because you want to be covering the story. You want to be involved. It's a, it's, it's a drive. I had a, a hot mic moment when I was covering the

• 5:08Speaker 01

  summit in Alaska. And one I'm not embarrassed about at all is we were having technical problems and then somebody was saying like, okay, we're going to come to you. Are you ready? And I'm like, I'm fine. Give me back my show. You know, like, let's go. I'm going to, you know, and some of the click hunters out there thought this was some big gaffe. I'm like, what's, I'm a very ambitious, aggressive newsman who wants to be covering stories. This is not any revelation. But anyway, yes. So it is difficult.

• 5:33Ryan Hawk?

  I say that like as in a good way, as in, it's kind of cool to have a job where you want to do it. You know what I mean? Like a lot of people don't have that luxury. I feel like I do. And it feels like you do where you have the, a job where like, I want to do it, man. Like it, part of the reward is that I get to do this really cool. It's hard, right? And you get criticized all the time. You know, that's part of the deal. But it's got to feel rewarding and like you've earned it to have a job that you want to show up and do it every day.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  It is a gift. And I know this because I have a lot of friends who have jobs that they love. And I have a lot of friends who have jobs that they do not love. And I am very lucky that I have a job that when all is said and done, forgetting the criticism and the difficulties of the news media in this year and blah, blah, blah. It's still just such a thrill to be able to cover this stuff. And I would be watching it if I were something else, a screenwriter or cartoonist or whatever. Like I have a very vivid memory. Of moderating or co-moderating the Republican debate in 2015 at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. And there's like 11 candidates there. Trump's there, Rand Paul,

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, blah, blah, blah. I was like, I have the best seat in the world. I mean, I was also asking the questions, but I was just like, this is so cool just to be here, just to be part of this historic moment.

• 6:57Ryan Hawk?

  This is a selfish question. How do you, when you're preparing for something like that, or just a big interview, what is your process to come up with questions? And then how do you decide, okay, do I go to the next question? Or do I stay in this moment and ask a follow-up? I'm just curious about how you approach that dance, because it's something I think about literally all the time.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, and it is the big challenge with interviews and with debates, it's even more challenging, which is, you know, you have 20 topics and they're all really important. And if I do a follow-up on this, that means I don't get to the question on veterans, or I don't get to the questions on the environment, you know, and when is it worth it? I should start off by saying, like, any interview I do, any debate I moderate, you know, it starts with this incredible team of really, really smart CNN producers and writers. I mean, just, just a fantastic team. And, you know, they, they don't get enough credit for that work. And that's not false humility, that's legit. Like, these are really smart people. And, you

• 8:01Speaker 01

  know, and we have debates about what works and what doesn't work and what's the thinking. And then when there's an interview with somebody really of note, or it's like a big moment, we talk about what's the most important thing in this interview? What do we want to come away from this interview? Because the easiest thing in the world is just to have a list of six questions and just ask each one. And just like, there are six topics, blah, blah, blah. What do we do? And it's a balance, and you just have to figure it out, and you don't always get it right. And there's the question of fact checking, too. And you do that in a debate, do you do that in an interview? What is somebody's opinion that like, look, they're entitled to think that Joe Biden was a horrible president, or Donald Trump's

• 8:44Speaker 01

  a horrible president. Like, that's their opinion. Like, I'm not gonna, am I there to push back on that? Am I there to stand up for facts? Am I there to say, well, the other side would say, blah, blah, blah. And it's all just... Subjective and imperfect and you're never going to please everybody and you just try to do the best job you can.

• 9:01Ryan Hawk?

  How do you deal with the criticism? Do you just block it out? Do you read it? Combination of things like, how do you handle all of the criticism?

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Well, there's a lot of it and I try to filter out the stuff that is just personal attacks or from people that are just going to hate what I do, no matter what it is from the left and the right. And I'm one of these folks that gets it from both sides.

• 9:25Ryan Hawk?

  Which is probably a good sign.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  I mean, it can be and not necessarily, not inherently, but I

• 9:30Ryan Hawk?

  Well, it might not feel good, but I think it shows that you're trying to be impartial. And I know you're probably criticized on either side, saying you're not, but I would imagine that that's a good thing, right?

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:44Ryan Hawk?

  Okay.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  I, I think so. I mean, I guess it comes down to this, like very few of my critics are people that I actually care what they think.

• 9:52Ryan Hawk?

  Yep.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  And the people that I care what they think, I'm sure they have notes here and there, but folks who understand like, I'm just trying to be a good faith operative here. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I don't have any ideological bias other than facts are important, decency is important. But beyond that, I, I'm just trying to like, figure out like, I don't have, I don't know what the answer to the war on Ukraine is. I don't know what the answer to the tax code is, et cetera, et cetera. But I guess anyway, to answer your first question, I do listen to criticism and I do read the criticism. I think that's something for people out there, because everybody is an expert on the news media. I think when you are just relentlessly critical of somebody, me or whoever, Nora O'Donnell,

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Chuck Todd, whatever, those are just two people I came up with, then people stop listening to you because then like, well, you hate everything I do. So who cares? And constructive criticism actually can be effective in the social media age when anybody, when a waitress at a, you know, at a Denny's in Tacoma Park can, or in Tacoma, Washington, I should say, can reach anybody. We, you know, you can theoretically reach anybody. And I think constructive criticism or

• 11:03Speaker 01

  I think it actually can be much more effective than you're a hack, you suck, I hate you. Joe Biden's the best, Donald Trump's the best, whatever, like you actually can have an impact. If you calm it down and like offer a substantive critique, and I have heard those. There's a guy named Elon Green, who's a, who's a really, really gifted writer. And he used to be very critical, relentlessly critical of me for not covering climate change enough. But he was right. I wasn't, and I listened to him. And, you know, I think it shocked him when I would like cover the environment and like, say, hey, just wanted to make sure you saw this.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  I could, because I respected him, I, I didn't care for all of his tweets, but, but, but, I mean, I understand, I understood where he was coming from. Yeah. So I mean, I guess the point is just like, the average person can have an impact on news coverage. Hey, I saw your story, have you thought about covering this is much more effective than you're ignoring blah, blah, blah. Like, odds are the person doesn't even know about blah, blah, blah.

• 12:05Ryan Hawk?

  Right, right. I'm curious about this pinned tweet. It's since 2017. To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle from George Orwell. Why have you left that as your pinned tweet since 2017?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  In full disclosure, I do, when I have a book to sell, I usually replace it for like that month or two.

• 12:29Ryan Hawk?

  Okay.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  But, but generally speaking, that is my pinned tweet. Because I think it is that some of the most, I, I just thought it was really profound. Orwell was writing about the fact that the Japanese and the Germans, he was writing during World War Two, about the fact that the Japanese and the Germans were going to lose the war. And that was something that the Japanese and German people did not see. Because they were constantly being lied to by their leaders. But the evidence was all there. And it's just a constant reminder for me. It's advice, honestly, that I wish I had taken. More seriously, when the evidence of Biden losing his acuity started really presenting itself

• 13:10Speaker 01

  in 2023, it was right there in the Biden book that I co-wrote with Alex Thompson of Axios, Original Sin. We have that Orwell quote in the opening of the book because it's like, it was right there in front of our noses. And then we were just being gaslit by Democrats and the Biden administration, but it was right there. And I think that is the stuff that is the easiest to ignore the stuff right in front of your face. Like, I don't know what the example is going to be, maybe more than one in the Trump era. You know, it's just a question of are we actually looking and seeing it?

• 13:41Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. You mentioned when you have a book coming out and it's crazy. You have one so quickly. That's why when I was talking with your team, like, he's got another one?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, this one, Race Against Terror.

• 13:50Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, it's called Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War. And you said, I was curious, like, how this book happened as I was digging in. You're at this paintball birthday party for your son, Jack. And somebody says, comes up and talks to you and says they know a guy, Dave Roller, who's a US veteran who you wrote about in The Outpost, which, amazing book, has got made into other stuff as well. How did this book come about from this paintball birthday party?

• 14:15Speaker 01

  So, first of all, let me just say, like, I've been working on Race Against Terror since, like, 2021, 2022. So, the Biden book was a Rush book. I put everything aside in November, December, January, February, worked on that. But this book was almost done before that.

• 14:30Ryan Hawk?

  Gotcha.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Except for editing. So this was a multi-year process. So, we have a paintball party. You have only girls? Or do you have, okay, so you're probably not having paintball parties?

• 14:40Ryan Hawk?

  I mean, I'd be down for, I think, maybe a couple of them would do it, but we have not had that birthday party yet, actually.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Okay. So, we had, so we had a paintball party, a period when my son was really into paintball. And it's like, you know, I live in DC. It's like an hour outside of DC. So, when I do the invitation, I'm like, parents, stick around. I have pizza, I have drinks, like, so they don't have to make... Four one-hour trips, right? It's just, you know, just stick around for a couple hours, hang out with the grownups. So one of the dads comes over to me and he says, oh yeah, you know, Dave Roller from the outpost. I know him. I'm like, oh, and we start talking about the outpost, which is a book I wrote about Afghanistan in 2012. And I said, yeah, you know, that book was really tough to write because the military, either they keep horrible records or they just don't share them. And I was doing the history of this one outpost for three and a half years.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  And like, it was really tough, you know, like I had to figure out who was in each unit. Like, I mean, they just don't help. It's a shame, really, honestly, because it was this, you know, it's a very pro-soldier book. Anyway, so I said, like, the military keeps horrible records. And he says, tell me about it. And then he tells me this incredible story. It starts off on the deck of an Italian cruise ship that's been commandeered during the Arab Spring. Bertusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, has commandeered the ship to bring all these refugees from the southern Italian islands to the mainland because it's like a huge refugee crisis in the Mediterranean that summer. And there's an Italian guard on the ship and this five-foot-six African guy, you know,

• 16:08Speaker 01

  in a ship full of Tunisians and Libyans, asks him for water and he gives him some water and he notices that the guy has bullet wounds. And he says, where'd you get those? And the guy's like, I'm a fighter with Al Qaeda. I got them fighting Americans. So they take this guy to another room and they interrogate him. And the guy starts freaking out and then they sedate him and they bring him to the Italian mainland. And then they call the Americans, they call the FBI. We have this guy named Spingool. He says his name is Spingool. Have you heard of him? And the Americans, so this is now the Eastern District of New York, the Brooklyn prosecutors, who are in charge of terrorism in Africa. Each division has their own, you know, terrorism cases that they do. Like Southern District has Europe, Eastern District has Africa. So he says, yeah, we've heard of Spingool and they've heard of him.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Not you and I haven't heard of him, but they have because of all the detainees in Gitmo. This is 2011. So all these detainees in Gitmo are talking and they've heard of Spingool. And what happens is because this is the Obama era, nobody knew was going to Gitmo. The Italians say, okay, well, take them. We don't want them. We can hold them for a month or two for disrupting stuff on the boat, but he didn't do anything to us. And Spingool is there like confessing and saying like, I killed Americans in Afghanistan. And I tried to blow up the US Embassy in Nigeria and blah, blah, blah. And the Americans have basically a ticking clock to build a case that will stand up in a court of law before the Italians free him.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  It's a race against time to prove that this random guy from Niger, who has all these wild claims and there's no evidence that anything he did, he can't even tell you what date the attack was in Afghanistan, to lock him up. Because if he really is who he says he is, he's, you know, he's a mass murderer and wants to kill as many million, like, he loves the 1998 Embassy bombings. So it's a race against terror. They have to race and build a case against this guy before the Italians free him. And it's just this incredible story that Dave Bitcower, who's one of the prosecutors, who was also the dad of one of my son's friends, tells me. That's just about this like, and then we did this and then we found this guy. And then we tracked down a guy who took this Quran off the battlefield.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  And then we sent it to Quantico and it had a fingerprint, you know, just, and it's just this CSI story, but real.

• 18:28Ryan Hawk?

  Wow. How are you doing this? Like all this research and writing and listening to stories while at the same time being a full-time head of CNN and husband and a dad? Like, how are you balancing all these things?

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I'm obviously a little nuts. I mean, that's gotta be part of it, but very wired and driven and like always researching and interested in stuff and just always was like that. And, you know, when I was a kid and I would be in the library a lot and, and reading stuff and just like, if I liked something or thought something was interesting. I mean, like, I'm just thinking like in 1981, I was really into the TV show Mash and then I went to the local library and then I was looking up every article I could read about Mash on microfiche. People out there don't even know what microfiche is. You know, it's like every Newsweek from 1977 is on this file and like you, I mean,

• 19:28Speaker 01

  it's just always how I've been wired just to like, I find something interesting and I want to find out everything I can about it. And thankfully now I have an outlet for it. That's not just a nerd sitting in a library, reading microfiche about Alan Alda. Like I'm actually doing research and this book was really interesting to write because there were just so many. Stories about it and what happens is then you become more of an expert almost than some of the other players because the prosecutors, for example, don't really know everything that the FBI is doing. The FBI doesn't know everything that the soldiers went through. The soldiers don't know everything that the Gold Star families went through and on and on. You actually end up being the expert on this whole thing because you know enough of all of the stories and then

• 20:13Speaker 01

  you can, and then you just figure out how, okay, now how do I present this to a reader? That is the most interesting and compelling way to bring it to them. That was the thinking of this book when I, you know, I'm gonna, I wanna write it like a thriller, except it's 100% true. And, you know, when I would tell people about the book halfway through that friends of mine, they'd be like, is this, wait, this is fiction or nonfiction? Cause I, cause I've written some novels too. I said, no, this is all true. Every bit of this happened.

• 20:39Ryan Hawk?

  That's what's wild. When you read it, you're like, how is this real life? Jake, one of the things I've seen amongst leaders who have sustained excellence over time is that thing you just talked about is they have this kind of peculiar desire to chase down their curiosities with great rigor. They just go and they go and they keep going and then they find other things they're curious about and then they go deep. And before you know it, you've written a ton of books and you've talked to presidents and then all this crazy stuff because it seems like this one central theme of your life is to chase down what you're really curious about.

• 21:20Ryan Hawk?

  I'd just love to hear your thoughts on that kind of approach you bring to both your life and your career.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  The main thing in my career, I think, has been hard work. And whenever people, like when young reporters wanna know the key, I feel like sometimes they just wanna hear like, oh, I'll hook you up with this agent and then everything will fall into place. And that's just, it's just not how it is. And I actually, unbeknownst to me, had a philosophy that I've since heard Steve Martin talk about when he talks about when young comedians come to him.

• 21:58Ryan Hawk?

  Charlie Rose, that one, that, that famous interview with Charlie Rose?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  It says, be so good that they can't ignore you.

• 22:03Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And that is when I was a campaign reporter at ABC News. I started at ABC in 2003. I wanted to be a campaign reporter in 2004. They did not give me a candidate. And then in 2008, by then I had earned, you know, through fact checking and being a congressional correspondent, then I was going to get a candidate. And I was competing, like my fellow ABC News correspondents were, all of them, just excellent in different ways. There was David Wright and Kate Snow and Dan Harris. And there were just so many and they were just so good. And I knew I had to be better than them in order to be the White House correspondent,

• 22:46Speaker 01

  which is what I wanted. Like, I couldn't be smoother. I couldn't be prettier. I couldn't be a better broadcaster. I could work on all those things. But the one thing I could do is work harder. I could work harder than all of them. And I could break more stories than all of them, or try to anyway. And I could aspire to do that. And I had to be so good that even though, on a broadcasting level, or an appearance level, or whatever, like, I wouldn't be the number one pick. But I had, I had to be so good that, like, David Weston, the head of ABC News at the time, had to give it to me. Because otherwise, he would look foolish. He would look bad. Like, why would you not give it to him? Like, he broke five stories, or whatever.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Like, that was always my philosophy. I had to just work harder. And even if that meant pissing off a lot of people, not internally, I mean, but like, by breaking as many stories as possible. Back then, people had, you know, blogs, reporters had blogs. And like, I would, if I couldn't get it on air, I would just put it on the blog. And the blog just became like, a place where I broke as many stories as possible. And I was just, the point was, I was just constantly working, constantly.

• 23:58Ryan Hawk?

  What sacrifices did you make in order to be so good that you couldn't be ignored?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I'm sure there were a lot of sacrifices. Obviously, so this is 2007, 2008. Well, I know that I sacrificed time at home, because I was on the road the whole year 2007, 2008, covering the presidential campaign. My daughter was born in 2007. My son was born in 2009. So I missed some important time there, which sucks. But thankfully, my wife understood that I was trying to build this career that would ultimately be able to provide for the family in a way that there would be like, a payoff for it at the end. I'm sure there were sharp elbows that needlessly provoked other people because I was younger and clumsier and whatever. I'm sure I pissed off a lot of political operatives when I broke stories they didn't like,

• 24:49Speaker 01

  or maybe broke them in such a way that I could have broken them better. I, you know, it's, it's when you're constantly churning out work. That's a risk unto itself because, I mean, especially if it's about politics, something that's so inherently controversial. So there were a lot of sacrifices. I think that working hard has been how I've been able to achieve whatever I've been able to achieve and also follow, follow, follow interests. Because any single thing I've done of major significance in my view, and I would, I would say, aside from the TV work, I would say The Outpost, I would say that I wrote a story

• 25:32Speaker 01

  for The Atlantic about this guy that was one of my dad's, my dad's pediatrician, one of his former patients that he thought was in prison unjustly. And I wrote a story for The Atlantic about his case. And ultimately that helped get him out of prison. He's, he's a free man now. That, C J Rice and the Biden book. Those are probably the most impactful non-TV things I've done. And every single one of them, people were telling me not to do it. Every single one of them. I was told not to do The Outpost because I didn't have any expertise in military reporting, which I didn't. It's true, I didn't. You know, when I started that book, I'd never even been to Afghanistan.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Anyway, it's been hard work and it's been following my curiosities, even when people told me, I'm not interested in that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to support you. Don't do that. That's been how it's worked for better, for worse.

• 26:28Ryan Hawk?

  What's made you go in the face of that, which is maybe called rejection or people telling you not to do it? And I don't know if these are people that you trust and love and that love you.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:40Ryan Hawk?

  All of above. What makes you keep going?

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Not family, but professional people. No, my wife has been, my wife's incredible. My wife supports everything I do. It's just the curiosity of wanting to know, of sensing a project that was worthwhile. Figuring out that even if I didn't know enough about it, that I could learn. Before I wrote The Outpost, I didn't have any experience covering war or, I mean, I guess I'd been to Iraq. But, but I didn't really have any major experience covering war or writing about these things. And I think it's the humility of accepting that I didn't know enough about these things. When I was writing The Outpost, I would send chapters to people who were there, who were experts.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  I found a couple of guys who, like, one of them had served in this part of Afghanistan with the State Department. Another guy was a linguist who was an expert on this particular region in Afghanistan. It's called Nuristan. It's, it's where The Man Who Would Be King takes place, the Rudyard Kipling book. It's like the Afghanistan of Afghanistan. It's like this incredibly isolated, dangerous place in Afghanistan. And they would come back with harsh criticism, really harsh criticism. And I came to value that so much because it hadn't been published, so it was okay. I could fix it. And, you know, they were unrelentingly harsh. I don't believe the story. This is so ethnocentric, how you're writing this.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  This is like white savior complex, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, great, great. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. Because you can fix it if it hasn't been published yet, right? So I think that's also one of the things that's important is having the humility to accept that I'm not an expert on any particular thing, really. I'm a journalist, which means I try to be an expert on whatever I'm covering at that moment. But having the modesty, the legitimate humility of saying, I don't know what a battalion is, you know, versus a, a, a company, like, explain that to me, has been an important part of the process, I think.

• 28:48Ryan Hawk?

  I think this willingness to be a beginner, this willingness to show up in places where you're not the expert, or you don't know everything of, of what you're talking about, is a superpower. I think it's a useful skill for leaders. To have, and I think it is a skill because it take, you gotta be tough. You gotta have some inborn confidence that's been created throughout your life. So like, I can show up and be a beginner. I've never done this. I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm willing to chase down my curiosity. I think more leaders would benefit from developing that skill. Jake, that leads me to another question I have that's leadership focused. So you've interviewed presidents, generals, world leaders.

• 29:30Ryan Hawk?

  And I'm sure there's lots of different things you've picked up from those conversations you've had. What are some of the most useful leadership lessons you've learned from talking to some of the most powerful people in the history of our world?

• 29:47Speaker 01

  I think the humility part of it is really important. And I don't know, this, some of this is from interviews. Some of this is just from observation. I mean, I've been a journalist now for almost 30 years and like, I have this theory. The great people often achieve as much as they can to the point that they are able to remove from their inner circle. Anyone who tells them they're being an asshole or making the wrong decision. They often do that. They often, you know, remove any critic from their inner circle. I call it the Jar Jar Binks theory. It's kind of a bad name, but it's because I think Jar Jar Binks is a horrible creation in the Star Wars movies.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  And that somebody should have been there and telling George Lucas, please don't put that Jamaican frog in the movie. It's, it's a horrible idea. The movie still made $6 billion, so whatever. But I think of it that way because it doesn't even matter about the success of the project per se, as it is about the worth and the quality of the work. So for instance, Joe Biden is a good example of somebody who by the end was surrounded by his top aides and his family, who they were not honest about what was going on with him. There are a lot of presidents who have had that problem. I think that that is the number one thing.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  It is very important to surround yourself with people and not just a spouse who will tell you when you're erring, as my wife without question does, but also.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  You know, your executive producer, your chief of staff, your top A, like you need people around you, not just to keep you humble, but to protect you from yourself. And I think that that is the most important lesson in leadership, because I see it violated all, like every day, all the time. I mean, it's just over and over and over. You say, why would they do that? Well, because they have removed every critic from their inner circle. So they don't even have a clear view as to how they look or what this might look like. They don't have anybody like that. And this is, you know, not to beat up on Joe Biden, but we saw this in the, when Alex and I wrote the Biden book, Original Sin, like that was something that we saw was the removal of any skeptic from the White House.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  It is something that, that in, in Race Against Terror, you don't see, because these are incredibly collaborative people, working and pushing and stress testing. And also the guys, the heroes of this book is not, they are not like, it's not the president, it's not the attorney general, it's like assistant US attorneys. It's like people who are, they are the ones to tell other people when they're screwing up. So because it's like upper mid-level people, they don't have the hubris, they have people on top of them pushing down. But I think that's a really, really important lesson, and I see it violated all the time.

• 32:39Ryan Hawk?

  I've seen this too, and it's, it's funny. I actually just had this conversation with my close group of friends, like the coaches I work with. I maybe point to an example of someone who has kind of lost it, meaning they've surrounded themselves with, yes, men and women. And I'll say, do not ever let that happen to me. I'll do my best to do the same for you.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Who do you have in your life that does that? Who's, who pushes back on you?

• 33:01Ryan Hawk?

  So I work with a group of coaches. One of their number one skills, not only for me, but just in life, is they are truth tellers. I think excellent coaches can see the truth, and they're not afraid to tell you, and they're not afraid to say it now. A big part is they have to have this underlying care and love for you. Genuine care and love. Genuine, because some people that are in your life are a little bit envious. They're a little bit jealous. I know you've got these people, even if you don't want them because you're a powerful person. You've risen up. And so, yes, hopefully you have those truth tellers. It sounds like you do. But also there are some of those that are kind of on the fringe or around that are like, I don't know, man. I don't know if I, I like Jake, but do I love him? You know, you want the people who love you and care for you.

• 33:46Ryan Hawk?

  And also will say, Jake, dude, what are you doing here?

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:49Ryan Hawk?

  You've lost it or you're just wrong. Or what you said last night? I don't know if that was the right way to go about it. What if you said it this way? And then you to say, ah, like, I know he loves me and I appreciate that. You know what I mean? Like, I assume like, is that how you try to design your team where it's not only welcomed, but encouraged to speak up to you to say, hey, I think we maybe approached that one wrong. We should maybe look at it like this.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, and I'm not deluded enough to think that like the power imbalance doesn't have an effect on whether or not people are willing to say something.

• 34:27Ryan Hawk?

  Right.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  To me or to other people. But without question, I have my executive producers and I go back and forth on stuff.

• 34:37Ryan Hawk?

  Do you guys fight, like healthy fight?

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, right now I'm thinking of my state of the union producer is this incredible executive producer named Rachel Streifelt. She's fantastic. And she and I disagree, like I would, you know, like I would like to have, and this is just, this is just a regular TV discussion, but like, if we're up to me, I would do one interview for like half an hour and she would rather do two or three. And like, it's a television programming and also a journalistic debate and it's a discussion. And then we lock horns on it. There's no right answer or wrong answer, but we disagree on that. Look, and I value that. I don't want a yes person. I want somebody like, it's a fight we continue to have because it's not like I'm right and she's wrong or vice versa.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  It's, we disagree and it's a healthy tension and it's about something substantive. You know, it's not like I'm trying to. Book Kim Kardashian, it's completely, there's no right answer on that. And sometimes I'll do an analysis, a news analysis, and we'll discuss whether or not I'm going too far, or I'm not going far enough. I mean, that's a healthy conversation that we have in the newsroom. I certainly encourage people to speak up, but like I said, I'm not naive enough to think that means like a 23 year old desk assistant is going to feel like she can just come in my office and say, I don't like this topic, or whatever, like she should, but I know that it probably is intimidating.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  But I hope that there is at least that kind of environment fostered where even if it's not brought up at a meeting, it can be voiced.

• 36:13Ryan Hawk?

  Why do you think so many powerful leaders struggle with this? Is it stemmed from an insecurity? Technically, it's more comfortable just to have people blow smoke and tell you how awesome you are. My background's in sports, and so I'm used to getting like annihilated by coaches every day when they watch practice film and game film. Like, I almost feel like I'm not living if I'm not getting critical feedback, because it's been hammered into me since I was five till like 26. And so I need it, I need it. Give me some feedback, like critical feedback, so I can get better, so I can get better. Because like, the people who I love so much in my life were coaches. And but

• 36:51Speaker 01

  I'm the same way.

• 36:52Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, you know what I mean? But like, now you're seeing it, whether it's presidents or other powerful people, where it's like, dude, who's around that guy to tell him, no, man? Why do you think this is such a thing?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  I think any sort of leadership is difficult. And I think any sort of leadership comes with, especially in this day and age, comes with a tremendous amount of criticism.

• 37:14Ryan Hawk?

  Yep.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  And often, let me just put myself in the, in the shoes of Donald Trump, just for the sake of this exercise. President Trump has a very difficult job. This is just like, remove what you think about Donald Trump, like anybody listening. Remove what you think about him, whether you love him, or you hate him, or you're in between. He's a very difficult job. And if you go online, you will find the nastiest, most personal attacks, not only on him.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  But his appearance, his wife, his daughter, his sons, his grandkid, like, there is the nastiest stuff out there. In addition, and this could apply to any president. So don't think like this is about Trump, but like in addition, he's getting death threats. He had assassination attempts. He literally has to walk around in a protective bubble because people will try to kill him. So you put yourself in that environment and then you say, well, why isn't he listening to criticism?

• 38:10Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  You know, I like, his entire life is criticism.

• 38:15Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Now, that doesn't mean I don't think he should listen to criticism. I do. And I think he could probably be an even better president if he had more skeptics around him, all that stuff, as I thought about Biden, et cetera, et cetera. But to any smaller degree, let's say, I'm just going to keep picking people who people won't expect me to sympathize with. Let's say Sean Hannity, right?

• 38:36Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Sean Hannity, same thing. He does a show every night. I'm sure he brings his best to it. I'm sure he thinks he's doing the best show he can do and he's providing entertainment and news and analysis and he's getting, he's making lots of money for Fox, this and that. And again, he probably has to have a security detail. The criticism on him, I'm sure is unrelenting. So in a situation like that, it might not be like the first impulse of somebody to say like, okay, give me some criticism.

• 39:10Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Right? So I understand how it could happen that somebody removes critics from their sphere. And I'm not saying that about Trump or Hannity. I'm just citing them as two examples of how tough it can be to be in the public sphere. So I think it makes sense. Now, add on that, if you're a general, you're literally getting shot at, right? If you're a Hollywood star, your life or death is like whether or not you get good reviews and the movies come out. And if your movie fails and literally maybe you're going to lose your job and your money and your power. And I mean, so the stakes are very high on a personal level. So I understand it. My point isn't that the criticism makes me a better

• 39:55Speaker 01

  person. My point is that it makes me a better journalist. That's, I think, the point. And I'm humble enough to know that like every day, I could stand criticism about what we could have done better yesterday and what we should do better tonight.

• 40:09Ryan Hawk?

  One of the attributes, I think you're exemplifying that we all would be better served having is the ability to legitimately put yourself in someone else's shoes. I don't think most of us do that hardly ever. We don't like sit there and actually think, wait, what would it like? A lot of the time, a lot of times this happens getting a company. It's just so easy to criticize the CEO when you're, you know, down multiple layers below. It's so easy to criticize the senior leadership, but if you've never taken the time to have an understanding of what their life is actually like, what are they faced with? What are their struggles, their problems? What you just kind of showed is it actually like helped me be a

• 40:52Ryan Hawk?

  little bit more reasonable because like, I don't know what that's like. I don't know what death threats and having to have, you know, assassination attempt. Like, I don't know what nobody really knows what that's like, but you're sitting there like, hey, why don't you guys think about that a little bit? It might make you just a more reasonable person. Now that still doesn't say, hey, you should just surround yourself with yes people, but I do think in general, a good leadership skill is to try to understand the world through somebody else's eyes. And if you can do that, you'll probably have higher EQ. You'll be able to better relate with people and probably become a better communicator and understanding of others. And that's a good leadership skill in itself.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  One of the things that's tough about it, and I know this from personal experience, is that like, it's very difficult to try to maintain that when you're talking about people that are being relentlessly unfair to you.

• 41:40Ryan Hawk?

  Yes.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Twisting things you say and, and attacking you personally and attacking your family personally, this and that. I have experienced that to a much smaller degree than President Trump or President Biden, but I know what it's like and it sucks. Well, one of the things I think is so interesting about President Trump is he drives so many people crazy, but it's not just his supporters who are driven to the point of illogic that they'll support anything he says or does, even if it contradicts itself or whatever. It's also his opponents. He drives his opponents crazy where they are just like knee jerk opposing anything he says or does, twisting this, that,

• 42:24Speaker 01

  the other, and they often be clown themselves in their hatred of him. Again, I understand it because it's difficult when you're in the public eye and people are just like. Really coming at you like other public officials to try to maintain the state of decorum and grace and respect for them when they're not doing it for you. So I get it. I understand why President Trump or others are like so angry and so inclined to lash back because psychologically, it's, it's not pleasant. And I can't say that I've maintained 100% like I have in my mind tweets that I wish I hadn't written, et cetera, since deleted, so you can't find them. But I'm sure

• 43:05Speaker 01

  they're out there somewhere. But like, you know, moments where I was like, I got mad and I betrayed the best version of myself that I want to be.

• 43:13Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. Well, I think the other thing is to realize, and I've, I've realized this after 650 of these things is every single person I've talked to, they've sustained excellence. They've done amazing things. They're also humans and humans are messy and the world's not black and white. It's really gray, right? And we all do stupid stuff from time to time. And I think that's life, man. Like I think it is weird. We put people on pedestals. We think they're not humans, but then you get to know them and you're like, yeah, impressive, super hard worker, really smart, gets after it, good leader, good person, also a human who makes mistakes and does dumb stuff sometimes. And I think that's a realization we need to come to.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, we're all fallible. I was just listening to the, I'm a big Dave Matthews fan. I was listening to his channel on Sirius XM.

• 43:59Ryan Hawk?

  Oh my God, he's, I've been to 80 plus shows. Are you one of those guys too? Do you like, you go to tons of them?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  I know. I go to one or two a year. I mean, I've been listening to him since 91 or 92 is the first time I heard him. He came to Philly. He opened for the Spin Doctors at the Chestnut Cabaret at Penn. We went to go see the Spin Doctors and we're like, who's this opening act? This is really good. I don't know how many times I've seen him. I just saw him in Montana with my brother. It was incredible, incredible show at Big Sky. So anyway, I was listening to his channel on Sirius XM, channel 30, as I'm sure you know, and

• 44:31Ryan Hawk?

  Nikki Glaser? Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he's talking about Ozzy Osbourne, who had just passed away. And he was just saying, like every time he, he said, he said something along the lines of, they say, don't meet your heroes because they'll always disappoint you. And basically that's true, except for Ozzy. Ozzy was always awesome. And I was thinking like, wow, you're Dave Matthews. You've met everybody. I'm like, who disappointed you? Like, you know, I wanted to find out like who is awful, but I'm sure, you know, because he catches them backstage at a concert and they're exhausted and 70 years old, 80 years old, you know? And it's like, we're all, we're all so broken and like imperfect and like, it's okay to acknowledge that.

• 45:16Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. Jake, I meant to say this earlier, but I really dug deep into your work back in 2019 because of your daughter, Alice.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:26Ryan Hawk?

  She wrote a book called Raise Your Hand, which we have read as a family quite a bit.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  You have, because you have how many daughters? You have four?

• 45:32Ryan Hawk?

  Five, five.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Amazing. God bless.

• 45:34Ryan Hawk?

  And so I'm, I'm curious.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  How many bathrooms do you have?

• 45:38Ryan Hawk?

  Not enough.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:41Ryan Hawk?

  Mine is overtaken from time to time. But I'm curious like how you balance an excellent career, right? You just dropped your daughter off at, at school and college, which I can't even imagine that day.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 45:54Ryan Hawk?

  I'm gonna lose my mind, but you just dropped her off at college. She wrote this great book called Raise Your Hand, and I think it speaks to, I mean, certainly to girls and to women, but also just to, I think, leadership in general, right? I think Raise Your Hand is a, is a good idea. How have you balanced, again, an amazing career where you've sustained excellence over decades, both writing books, bestsellers, and the main dude on CNN for quite a while now, with also being a really good husband and being a great dad?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, let me just say, Alice and her mom get all the credit for Raise Your Hand. Alice noticed when she was like eight or nine that all of a sudden the girls in her class weren't raising their hand and the boys in her class were.

• 46:36Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  And even if the boys didn't know the answer, they just raised their hand. She talked about it with her mom, my wife, Jennifer, and they took it to the Girl Scout troop. And they came up with a patch, the raise your hand patch, which is basically you promised to raise your hand in class if you think you know the answer and you promised to get three other friends. And if anybody's listening out there who has any connection to Girl Scouts, this is a patch that anybody can get. She did the patch. I was so proud. I tweeted about it. Barry Weiss, who was in at the New York Times, saw that, said, would Alice like to work with us on an op ed? She did. That came out online. Penguin Books saw that, said, would she like to write a book? Yes. And she worked with the editor and wrote a book called Raise Your Hand. And I'm very proud of her, but that's all

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Alice and Jennifer and the Girl Scout troop, honestly. I mean, look, I have tried to be the best and most supportive dad I can be. We have a son, Jack, too. He's 15. I can't sit here and pretend that I've always been here and there have been no sacrifices or that I'm a perfect dad or anything like that. And in fact, when Jennifer and I dropped Alice off at Michigan, I came home and I wept for the first time in, since 2021, when Alice was sick. That's another story. But she's 100% fine now. She wrote it. There was a follow-up book called Use Your Voice about speaking up at the hospital. That's another kid's book. In any case, one of the parts of my weeping was about everything

• 48:01Speaker 01

  I missed. Because the 18 years goes like that. And I thought about like, all the time I wasn't there because I was at work or because I was in Iowa or Afghanistan or whatever. So, you know, there are sacrifices. And I think, you know, what I've been able to provide for Alice is unconditional love, hopefully reasonably wise advice, good editing, and I'm a good editor for any email my wife, son, or daughter want to. Although my son's never used it. But anyway, and support and like financial support so she can do whatever she wants to do. The truth is, that's what I cried about, is the stuff I missed that

• 48:43Speaker 01

  I wasn't there for. Because I was chasing a story or on assignment or whatever. So, you know, that's something I've been thinking a lot about. Because, you know, she's not, she's at college. She's not gone from this earth. So there's still time to rectify that.

• 48:57Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. We've talked about this a little bit earlier. I just happened to look at the clock and realize how much time has passed so quickly.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  This has been such a good conversation. I haven't.

• 49:05Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, I really, really appreciate it, man. Because like I said, I've followed your work for a long time. And I love people who are able to take these. Wild stories and turn them into books because I've done it a few times and I know how insanely hard it is and how much I doubt and struggle through the process to get a book to the finish line. You've done it so many times and they're so, so good on top again of doing all the stuff you do at CNN. But I'm just curious for people a little bit earlier in their career, and again, we hit on this a little bit earlier, for that person who's like, you know what, I want to leave a positive dent in the world. I don't know how yet, but I do. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  I mean, so the first thing I would say is if they're interested in journalism, like anybody can be a pundit, and especially in this day and age when punditry is just basically just people insulting other people.

• 50:02Ryan Hawk?

  Right.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Online. Be a reporter, be a journalist. Like I, this is famous last words, I can't imagine writing a memoir because it's really, who cares?

• 50:13Ryan Hawk?

  I think you should.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  No, well, I have no, maybe when I'm 80 and I need to figure out a project and I got, you know, but I'm telling you, the stories of other people are so much more interesting.

• 50:25Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  And what other people think about issues going on, whether it's like Jonah Goldberg or Ashley Allison, another Democratic pundit we have, or whoever, like what they think is much more important than what I think. And what politicians think about issues are much more important than what I think. So as a general rule, other people are more interesting than you in terms of journalism. Hard work is very important. The advice I give to young people, especially people in college who have never really experienced it, so much of life is rejection. There's so much rejection in life. It's nonstop.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  It is just a constant flow. You cannot stop it and you cannot revel in it. You cannot marinate in it. It just is. And just know that and like know how much there is out there and don't take it personally. Or if there is some constructive criticism that's part of it, then learn from that to improve your game. Truth is like most fields in the humanities, there's a tremendous amount of rejection. Journalism, history, English, fiction, interviews, whatever. So.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Just knowing that and like coming to terms with the fact that Dr. Seuss's first book was rejected by forty seven publishers or whatever, you can go through a list of them. They're just like, there are so many examples of really worthy artists and projects being told you're worthless. And like, you just can't let that be the final word. So rejection and hard work. And then the other thing I always tell young people is nobody will give you a job to be nice. Like, it just doesn't work that way. People are nice to you throughout grade school and high school, even college. But the idea is nobody will do anything for you, generally speaking, in the professional world to be nice. They'll do it because you have something they want.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  And so just have that thing. And then it doesn't have to be like Steve Martin's advice of be so good, they can't ignore you because obviously so few people are born with the skill of Steve Martin. But for most fields, hard work is enough. For most fields, hard work is enough. For journalism, hard work is enough. And that means like, I really want this job. I will be here at six in the morning and I will be the last one to leave at night and I will do anything you want. Tell me where to go. Tell me where to be. You know, here are my clips, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it can be that simple. And then, once you kind of accept those truisms, for me, life can become a lot more pleasant because then it's,

• 53:08Speaker 01

  it doesn't feel like just an unrelenting wave of rejection. It's just like, okay. Remember in Survivor where Tom Hanks is like trying to get out his raft? He's trying to leave the island and there's this one wave to his raft cannot get past. But he figures out how to do it. It's just like this timing and it's like every seventh wave you can sneak in like. If you work hard enough, you can sneak past the wave on the seventh time. I mean, it just, every code can be cracked.

• 53:40Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, you gotta keep going. I try to remind people too, that you get hired to make that person's life better.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:49Ryan Hawk?

  To help that company, to help your boss. To, again, they're not hiring you because like, oh my God, you're amazing. It's like, wait, you can solve a problem? Yes, I can solve a problem. I will figure that out. I will help you. I will make your life better. That's why you do it and you get promoted for the same reasons. Like it's amazing how it works, but you kind of got to get out of your own head to do that. And I love the idea of just, you gotta keep fighting through the rejection. If you look at the stories of people who have sustained excellence, they've all faced some sort of rejection or adversity and they just kept at it. They kept at it. Part of winning is just staying in the game. Too many people quit and that's why they lose because they don't have a chance.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent.

• 54:28Ryan Hawk?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 54:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And look, I mean, so original sin was the, the Biden book I wrote. And I, look, I have no idea how well this book is going to do. I hope, I hope it does well. But honestly, to me, it's just like, I wrote this book. I'm proud of it. I hope people buy it. I hope people enjoy it. I mean, I'd like it to be a bestseller, all that stuff, but like, it is the work that it is. But original sin, just to bring it back to the rejection thing. Alex and I started working on the book the day after the election. Cause we're like, what happened? That was not normal and I still don't like, how bad was it behind the scenes? And we start working on it and Alex and I, and I said to Alex, like, we were working on the book. We didn't have a publisher. I mean, he had an agent and I had an agent and they were working on shopping around it. You know, we wrote a proposal and then they work on shopping it around.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  But I said, I don't care if we self-publish this and put it on eBay. I just want to answer this question and write this book. Now it turned out that there were a couple of publishers that were interested and, and ultimately Penguin Random House published it. But I'll say, there were publishers that rejected it. That didn't even want to read the proposal. And then there were publishers that, you know, offered a low bid or whatever. Again, that's fine. It got almost universally positive reviews from the mainstream critics, the New York Times, Washington Post, et cetera. And it was on the bestseller list for seven weeks. It was number one on the nonfiction list for the first and second week. So it's like, I only say that by saying like, whatever you think of Joe Biden, whatever you think of me, like, the book was successful.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Publishers rejected it. There are, I mean, I'm not going to name them, but like, there were publishers rejected the book. It was a success. Period. Full stop. So like, you know, I'm probably at the top of my craft right now, or at least with the top that I'll ever achieve. And like, just for anybody out there struggling or whatever, like, I get rejected every day. Every day. And it doesn't matter that I've had New York Times bestsellers before or whatever. It's part of life. And it sucks, but you just have to keep fighting through and beating that wave on the seventh one.

• 56:35Ryan Hawk?

  I think that message is super inspiring because some would assume like, well, you just kind of can do whatever you want. Of course, everybody wanted it. Of course, you know, because we've seen the numbers it's done and the impact it has had. And another one that I've read that is wild that I recommend people reading too. But yeah, I mean, this current book, it's kind of like a movie is how I would describe it. That's how it reads. I mean, I love watching movies, but it feels like that. So I think it's really hard to make the written word feel like a movie. And this book, Race Against Terror, Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War, feels like a movie, like you're inside of it. It's really, really well done.

• 57:19Ryan Hawk?

  I really appreciate your team sending me an early copy and for them to connect us because I really enjoyed this, Jake.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Well, this was a lot of fun. I'll just give two, for any aspiring writers out there, I'll give you two bits of advice that I think I achieved in this book and the last book, and maybe not in any of the previous ones, which is, one, have a really good structure.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Like, that's an important part of a book is like the beginning, the middle and the end. There's the old aphorism like act one, chase your hero up a tree. Act two, throw rocks at your hero. Act three, get your hero out of the tree. That's the basic dramatic structure for everything. And so having a good structure is important. And then number two is have a good editor and be willing to kill your darlings, as they say. Faulkner, I think, said it. This editor I have for this book, Sean Zalone, he's fantastic. I would send him a chapter. I'd done the outline and I was sending him chapter by chapter. That's how we wrote it. Now I'd send him chapter seven and he'd be like, Jake, you need to rewrite chapter seven. It's too much like chapter four. Here's my idea for it. And I'd be like, fuck.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  I don't want to do more work. I'm doing so much work, but

• 58:30Ryan Hawk?

  Just tell me it's good, man.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:32Ryan Hawk?

  No, no, that wouldn't be loving you. That wouldn't be showing you the love.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Literally, I'm sitting here and I sent an outline for a project to my agent. And like, I'm just waiting for him to say like, this is good. This is bad. It should be a screenplay. It should be a novel, like whatever. He might say it sucks. I mean, I don't even know, but it's something I've spent the last two months working on. And like, again, it could be nothing. He could say it's, it's awful. Like this is all just part of the process. And then if it turns out like, eh, I don't think I can sell this or this isn't any good or blah, blah, blah. Or it needs work or whatever. Like I'm 56, but like I might as well be 22. It doesn't matter. Like it's still, I'm facing rejection and yes, things are a little easier for me now, but like, that doesn't mean like,

• 59:16Speaker 01

  I'm not in it still the same way as I was back when it was a hundred percent rejection. Now it's only 95% rejection.

• 59:24Ryan Hawk?

  You feel, it feels like you're speeding up.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:27Ryan Hawk?

  Is that accurate? Are you speeding up like right now? Like you're going harder. You're not like taking it easy and resting on your laurels and all the money and everything. You're kind of getting after it even more.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Yes, that's accurate. I don't know how much longer I have this window where people are paying attention to ideas I have or thoughts I have. I like having multiple projects going. I know if there's anything I've learned from watching peers and older contemporaries, it's that relevance is ephemeral. And when it leaves, it looks fucking brutal. I mean, it hasn't left me yet, but it will at some point. And, you know, I just want to make sure that I'm producing as much as possible while I still can.

• 1:00:13Ryan Hawk?

  I think it's inspiring, man. I love, I love the idea of speeding up. Like, I'm gonna go, man. I'm gonna maximize this thing. Let's get after it. Let's try to help people. Let's make an impact. Let's tell stories. Again, I think it's inspiring when you see somebody who's at the top of the mountain and they run faster and they go harder. You know, maybe that's not for everybody, but it's for me, man. I love that kind of approach to this thing. And I think it's inspiring for others to see that, that you're speeding up at a time when maybe some would relax or would coast. And I think that's, I appreciate that.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  I thank you. And, and I have to say, your metaphor is making my, my bones ache. The idea of me right, right, hitting the top of a mountain and it's running, running faster sounds incredibly painful to my knees and lower back. But I, I know you mean it as a metaphor. So I'll take it in that spirit.

• 1:01:04Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, this is great, man. Overall, I really appreciate this, Jake. I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely. This has been so fun.

• 1:01:16Ryan Hawk?

  It is the end of a podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of a podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Jake Tapper. A few takeaways from my notes. Be so good, they can't ignore you. As Jake said, I might not be as good looking as you are. I might not be as smart, but I am in control of how hard I work. As leaders, it is our responsibility to work so hard that we become the obvious choice for the job or the promotion. Be so good, they can't ignore you. And then the one leadership skill that is massively important

• 1:02:01Ryan Hawk?

  to develop. Do not insulate yourself with quote, yes, people. You have to have truth tellers in your Life. Who are your foxhole friends? Who are the people that are willing and able to tell you the truth? Who are the ones who love you and care enough about you that they'll let you know when you've messed up? Those people are gold. We all need them. And then I thought his life slash career advice is really good at the end. Dr. Seuss was rejected by 47 publishers. Rejection is part of life. You have to stay in the game for a chance to win it. Keep going.

• 1:02:46Ryan Hawk?

  And nobody, nobody will give you a job to be nice. What value do you bring to a company? How will you make your boss's life better? You get hired to solve a problem, not because someone wants to be nice. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Jake Tapper. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and you subscribe to the show. You're rated hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review by doing all of that. You are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.