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ditty-diego · 7 years ago

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Neztalk

An interview with Ken Sharp, 1989

In March, Michael Nesmith spent a couple weeks in New York City doing a series of interviews with the media to promote the New York opening of his latest production, “Tapeheads”. Besides promoting “Tapeheads”, Michael is having one of his most visible, high-profile years in a long, long time, with the recent release of a video and album and the impending release of another album and the “Overview” video magazine. Rock radio reporter (and MBF member) Ken Sharp had the opportunity to interview Michael and he shares that interview with us here:

KS: I know you’re asked this question all the time, so let’s get it out of the way right off. When are you going to get back together with … The First National Band?

MN: Well, yeah, that’s the most common question that I’m asked actually. Most people come up to me and say, “Say, whatever happened to the other guys?” and I know immediately that they’re talking about John London and Red Rhodes and John Ware. I mean, who else would they be talking about?

KS: What is Red Rhodes up to, by the way?

MN: Well, you know, I’ve lost contact with all those guys. John London moved back to Teas. He’s working, I think, in the real estate business or something and Red Rhodes I haven’t talked to. I assume that he still plays. I got a call from one of his family — his ex-sister-in-law — the other day and I called her back and she left the wrong number so I wasn’t able to get in touch with her. And John Ware, I think, moved to Nashville and is working in the radio business in Nashville.

KS: April 5 marks the release of ��Nezmusic” …

MN: Oh, really? Is that when it’s coming out?

KS: I think it is. I was curious, some of this stuff came out in different forms, but why now? What was the idea behind compiling it? Were there a lot of requests or what?

MN: Yeah, well, it was just a combination of requests. I get a lot of fan mail from the Monkees fan clubs and stuff. And almost every single letter requests for me to put out the old music. What I did was I went back to the archives and over the years I’ve made a couple of dozen albums, I guess, and the first ten that I made are still under the auspices of RCA, but there were about 4 or 5 that I made subsequent to that beginning with a record called “The Prison”. So Harold Bronson over at Rhino Records called me up and he says, “let’s put out, let’s go back and re-license…” That’s kind of their business, you know, And I said, “Harold, I don’t think anybody’s gonna play any of my records.” And he says, “Well, we specialize in marketing records that don’t get played.” So I compiled two LP’s. One was an LP which was to be songs from the country sort of era, with the First, Second, Third National Bands, and the second which was to include things off “Radio Engine” and “Infinite Rider” but also half a dozen songs that I wrote for a movie called “Video Ranch”. And divided them up into “The Older Stuff” which was the country stuff and “The Newer Stuff”. So “The Newer Stuff” was the only thing we were able to get out because we had licensing problems on “The Older Stuff”. So we could only get one of them out. And when I put together “The Newer Stuff” I realized that I had music videos on seven or eight of them and I had also been getting a lot of requests to combine all those music videos on one videocassette, so I put it together and called it “Nezmusic”.

KS: Wasn’t “Video Ranch” called something different? “Neon” something?

MN: “Neon Ruby”.

KS: Why was that project not completed?

MN: Well, the biggest reason is that I was not able to interest a distributor in releasing it. That’s the biggest reason. Had I been able to do that it would have gone forward. The creative elements were there, but it’s a movie musical and, like “Tapeheads”, these things are tough. Number one, they’re very hard to do creatively and, number two, they’re hard to market. However, I think we’re about to enter into the time when we’re going to see more and more of those, so keep your fingers crossed. Maybe “Video Ranch” will come out. (laughs)

KS: It’s nice to see unreleased tracks like “Tanya” and “Formosa Diner” will see the light of day.

MN: Did you get a pre-copy of this?

KS: No, I didn’t.

MN: Did you see the liner notes, or what?

KS: No, I’m a pretty big fan, besides what I do for a living, so I did a lot of research.

MN: Sounds like you’ve been on Lexus Nexus or one of those online services.

KS: Will you release any videos for the Rhino early material? Something like “Joanne” that you never did a video for to promote it?

MN: Till you said it I hadn’t thought of it. Maybe it’s a good idea. I don’t know. Do you think it would be a good idea to go back and do old songs? Creatively, do you really? I don’t know, because I think of the video as a form and there is such a thing as an audio-only record. Can you imagine a video of “Joanne”, takes a picture of a beautiful woman in a filmy dress living in a house by a pond? It starts to get kind of dumb. (laughs) The emotion it evokes is different. When I wrote “Rio” I really had a picture in mind, although I didn’t realize at the time that it was gonna father an entire way of life, but I did sort of have in mind that this would make something nice to put on film. Then when Island asked me to make a promotional clip to send overseas and I did it, you know, it all married up nicely. But to go bac and do it … maybe I’ll write some stuff. Best I should do “Video Ranch”, I think.

KS: Do you still write songs? Do you still play the guitar.

MN: Yeah. Not a lot, but I still do it.

KS: Will we see new material from you? Not as an audio album, but as a combination?

MN: Yeah, I’d do that.

KS: There is a demand. I’d love to hear it and so would a lot of other people.

MN: You know, the biggest problem that I have, number one, is that nobody will play these records on the air. I won’t get any airplay. So without airplay making a market for this, it’s very hard and unless you have a Rhino Records behind it that is willing to commit to marketing the record without airplay, you’re in trouble. And also when you’re writing to this kind of form it’s very expensive and kind of a big uphill battle to do unless you really feel like you got some sort of a built-in market.

KS: Don’t you thin country radio stations would embrace your music?

MN: Well, I don’t know. We live in the days of Randy Travis and Dwight Yokum. I don’t think so. I think there’s a different mindset afoot out there.

KS: I hope it still doesn’t dissuade you from making new music.

MN: Maybe I’ll be some young Dwight Yokum’s Buck Owens, how’s that? (laughs)

KS: In 1979 you felt the audio end of schemes was going to be obsolete and in 1982 you closed the record division of Pacific Arts.

MN: Was it ’82? I thought it was earlier than that. Well, that sounds about right.

KS: Now ten years later with CD’s and DAT’s here and music sales at an all-time high, how do you account for that and did that enter in your decision to work with Rhino on releasing stuff.

MN: Well, no, it’s an anomalous bulge. It doesn’t mean that there’s a rebirth of audio-only stuff. I mean, I think you have to look at your own lifestyle and find out, you know, what do you do more of? Do you watch more television or do you listen to more radio? That varies from person to person, but I’ll bet if you took a national statistical average you’d find more people watch more television than they listen to radio. Simple. OK, start with that as a point of departure. Why did CD’s suddenly take off? Well, number one, it was exceptional sound quality. Number two, it was a very accessible and easy user-friendly medium, and, number three, you’re able to go back and hear stuff that you’d loved for a period of time but you’d basically worn your records out. So you drew from a huge catalog, a great library of material with people who were replenishing and restocking their early audio times. But these are people who grew up on audio. Now let’s shift to the 9-year-old, to the 8-year-old who is going to be 20 in the year 2000. What kind of equipment will this person have? Will they have a CD? Yes. What can a CD do that an audio record can’t? Well, it can play pictures. You’re seeing go into place the technological base for this video revolution and I still stand by my original statement that the audio medium is going to diminish and diminish and diminish and diminish until audio-only will occupy a very small part of the overall — what do you want to call it — entertainment spectrum. It’s like network television. Network television, look at the shrinking share. Are you familiar with these statistics?

KS: Go ahead, please.

MN: Well, I’m not so familiar with them that I can quote them with complete accuracy, but it’s something to the degree that it’s gone from a 93% share in the mid-‘70’s or early ‘70’s of the total homes using television to somewhere around 60% and one point represents millions of people. But you have to look at that they’ve lost, what, thirty, forty MILLION viewers? They’ve lost it. You also have to look at what videocassette has done to the redefinition of prime time television. Videocassettes are prime time television. And what it says is prime time television is not at 9:00. Prime time television is 2:31 in the morning, it’s 6:17 in the evening, it’s 12:11 in the afternoon, it’s whenever the consumer wants to put the videocassette in and watch it. Now you have an interested consumer, aware of what they’re watching with a high desire to view. That’s prime time television and videocassettes have simply robbed the network television market. Those are the sort of changes that you can’t overlook when you try to make a sense of what’s gonna come in the future, And I think you’re going to find this in the audio/video or video music or whatever name you want to put on it. I don’t know what you could call it. And all the things that are going into place now is not the resurgence of the audio-only medium but basically the audio-only medium riding the technological curve of the present day and with the music getting a nice free ride on this. When it’s all said and done, these are video discs.

KS: Back to “Nezmusic”…on a song like “Cruisin’ “, did you have the idea for the video in mind and then come up with the song or did you write the song first and then create a video around that?

MN: Well, with “Cruisin’ “ the video was very much in mind and all of the songs since then have the pictures very much in mind and try to make them both work together.

KS: Do you enjoy working that way? Does having the visuals in mind help your writing?

MN: Yeah, it expands it because sometimes when you’re writing one of the things you’re looking for is a proper way to express a particular emotion. So you might spend hours or days or quite a bit of time trying to find a word, a phrase or something that conveys some idea what you want to convey. When you put pictures into the equation, you can think, “All right, I don’t need to SAY this out loud. I don’t need to put this in a word because, when I marry the picture to it, it will convey this.” So many times just the presence of the video in your mind, the picture in your creative processes will help you out. For one thing, “Cruisin’ “ was this odd rap record, OK? Go figure. And to me it was OK to just say poems over the top of a kind of simple bleat, you know, it was just bass and drums.

KS: Ahead of its time, when you think about it.

MN: Yeah, when you think about it. (laughs) But at the time no one was thinking that rap would become what it became. And so with “Cruisin’ “ it was a fairly clear poem — the challenge became how do you pictorially represent a phrase like “the light behind their eyes”? How do you do that? And when you write to the video form, sometimes you’ll avoid a phrase like “the light behind their eyes” because it’s much more descriptive and evocative of a mental image than it is of an actual picture. And it’s very important for me to make sure that I steer clear of narrative interpretation of these things. So with “Cruisin’ “ I learned my way a lot and, yes, I did write it with the visual in mind, but I also drove myself into a ditch in several other instances, for instance “the light behind their eyes”, and what I was left with was a cheesy video effect. I mean, I had to do this thing that made this guy’s head blow up with light, you know, Well, OK, so that was fine, but still …

KS: On ”Nezmusic” the overall clips hold up so well — the humor in “Rio” and how current “Cruisin’ “ is — to look at it now.

MN: Well, you know, when we made ‘em a long time ago we were sort of on the cutting edge of the form and we didn’t have the mandate to make a commercial for a record. What we were trying to do was really work on the form. And so the result was that we employed a lot of really basic values and basic values have a tendency to be basic (laughs), to be permanent.

KS: It’s the 25th Anniversary of the Beatles’ arriving in America …

MN: When is that?

KS: Well, actually, it was February.

MN: Oh, it was?

KS: Yeah, Feb. 64. The song “I’ll Remember You” exemplifies your love for the Beatles. I wanted to talk about that and ask you a few Beatles questions.

MN: Let me tell you about “I’ll Remember You”. Have you heard this song? “I’ll Remember You” I wrote while John was alive. I wrote it in ’79 or ’78 and I wrote it to send to him. I was just gonna give it. You know you write songs to friends sometimes. So it was just a message I was gonna send to him and I knew he was living with Yoko at the time in the Dakota taking care of Sean as a househusband, and I admired that in him. I thought it was good, you know, especially after his sort of sowing some oats there before and so I realized that I was quite fond of John and I’d spent some time with him and I had never really, aside from “Lady Madonna”, I had never really expressed a lot of appreciation for his music. One of the things that happens is that as a writer and a famous or celebrated individual you very seldom have your peers walk up to you and say, “Say, you know, I really like what you did,” Very seldom. I mean, most of the time you’re in some major competition. So I wrote that song specifically with that in mind, just to express a little gratitude. And then part of it I was trying to think from what dynamic does this thing that I feel about John and the music that he wrote come? And I realized that I had the same level of appreciation for the Fred and Ginger movies and I began to draw the parallels between the two of them to enhance the song “I’ll Remember You”. But it was not posthumous to John.

KS: Did you send it to him before his death?

MN: Nope. Never got to it. I just kept it and I didn’t send it and then the next thing I know, Howard Cosell says, “At the end of the day, it’s only a football game …”

KS: You stayed with John in 1967. What was that like? There are a lot of comparisons between you and a lot of talk of the rivalry between the Beatles and the Monkees.

MN: It was like, you know, staying with you or staying with anybody else. You just go over somebody’s house and stay!

KS: Was John a fan of the Monkees’ series?

MN: Don’t know. Didn’t talk about it. Like I say, it’s the sort of thing you don’t talk about. They were recording “Sgt. Pepper” at the time and he played me some tracks for “Sgt. Pepper” and that was about as far as it went. We played a little bit. I mean, basically, that’s what you do. That’s what I did with those guys. When you hung out, you played. You picked up a guitar and played.

KS: There’s a video for “A Day in the Life” in the studio and you’re in it! What was that like, to be there for one of the greatest recording sessions? It must have been amazing.

MN: Well, I know, but you have the mists of myth around it. Whatever it is that’s your current discipline, look at what you’re doing and think about the friends that are involved in that discipline with you and think about going out and having a hamburger with them. How big of a deal is it? It’s not a big deal at all! But listen, I mean, it makes for great dinner stories and I can get anecdotal about it and I can tell you all sorts of things and create magical images and stuff but that’s all nonsense. Basically it’s just John says, “Well, we’re going to be in the studio. You wanna come down? And is it OK that we take some pictures? We’re going to have a camera crew there.” And I said, “Sure.” It was good ‘cause there was a stack of people there, you know what I’m saying, it was a party. “Well, Paul’s got this band together and we’re going to do this big orchestra thing and so maybe you’ll sop by.” And I said, “Hey, I wouldn’t miss it.”

KS: What did you think about the comparisons? A lot of people said there was a rivalry…

MN: What, between the Monkees and the Beatles? Well, it was lunacy. I mean, there was not only not a rivalry, it’s like the Beatles were the Green Bay Packers and we played tennis! You know, it’s just not the same game.

KS: Did you think they had an influence on you as a songwriter?

MN: Well, I didn’t feel any, but that’s not to say that they didn’t. I mean, I was not really a product of those times. My musical roots went back more to hymns and movie music, some of the classics and R & B and country. That was sort of my musical mix. It’s one of those things that makes me very comfortable with elevator music today. There’s such a thing as good elevator music. I’s hidden to most people because everybody thinks of dentists when they hear it, but nonetheless, every once in a while I’ll be standing in an elevator and start tapping my foot and everybody in the elevator will look at me like, “What is wrong with this guy?” (laughs)

KS: “Magic” was a great homage to the 1950’s era.

MN: Well, it kind of was, wasn’t it? I didn’t intend it to be but it sorta ended up that way, didn’t it?

KS: Being on the Monkees’ television show, did it plant some ideas in your head even back then about how far you could go with the visuals? Did you gain a lot from that?

MN: I think so, to a certain degree. There was a large amount of the technical and creative part that went on that I didn’t pay any attention to. So I didn’t get as much as you might think. What I learned from that was really how to work with a creative team. The musical dynamic, learning to put together the image with the music really came from watching musicals, “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Fantasia” and, you know, those musicals, those old, old musicals. You can rent them at the video store now. “Wizard of Oz.” You know, these are tremendous musicals. So that was, and I guess Busby Berkeley as much as anybody. Do you know his stuff?

KS: In ’83 you said you lost interest in music videos. You said it was like radio with pictures, whereas you saw it as an art form. I wanted to ask why you dropped out and why you didn’t stay with it to bring it into new areas?

MN: Well, the idea of radio with pictures came because most music videos are like commercials for records and I was being asked to do videos for people and I didn’t want to do that. It’s the same thing if somebody called me up and asked me to do a commercial. I don’t want to do a commercial. So I made a decision to do motion pictures which was where I felt like I could do the art form. I tried to put together music type of motion pictures — wasn’t completely successful with it. “Tapeheads” is the first time I’ve gotten even close. But it really was not an attempt to abandon the music video form but to get into an area where I could actually do it. And music videos weren’t it.

KS: Do you think music video is healthier now or is it even worse than it was six years ago?

MN: Oh, it’s gotta be healthier than it was because there’s just a certain law of progress that goes with everything. You gotta get smarter people. You’re saying to me now as if you understand it — and I assume you do — that the current music video is a commercial for a record. You also say that to me as if that’s a pejorative. You say it in a certain disparaging way, so I assume that you don’t think it’s a good thing, that you think it’s as least not a fulfilling element of the form. So I can tell you from talking to literally dozens of other people like yourself that you echo a common sentiment, at least in my experience. So I think that what that common sentiment is bringing forward is that, well, we’ll tolerate the radio with pictures things because at least it kind of pushes us along, but there’s more here than meets the eye, there’s a bigger bone buried in this backyard than we’ve dug up, whatever metaphor you want to insert. At some point somebody’s gonna come along, grab hold of the form and do it, whether it’s me or whether it’s somebody else, I don’t know, but it’s gonna be somebody who’s gonna come along and do it.

KS: And there’s the occasional gems that do come through that make you still believe in the form.

MN: I think heavy metal is probably the most fertile ground right now for something to come along. Well, it’s Wagnerian. You have to look at it that way, number one. I’m talking about heavy metal as a real point of departure. Heavy metal is a good example of music that’s really taken a left turn somewhere along the line and you have to keep in mind that Hendrix was on the first Monkees tour, you know. That’s one of the great ironies of the 60’s. And it was Hendrix who infected me with a love for heavy metal and made it stay forever, which, you know, I’m still a big heavy metal fan. I couldn’t find much that I liked with heavy metal. I liked AC/DC and I liked some of the stuff, you know, from Aerosmith, Foghat, REO Speedwagon, and some of these things that weren’t really heavy metal but kind of were heavy metal pop. It really wasn’t until Eddie Van Halen came along. And Van Halen was the first time that I thought, “Ah! There’s been some life breathed in here.” Of course, now, I don’t know what he’s doing, he’s off in some other zone again, but where he was working with David and those guys, that was HOT. That was real Iwo Jima stuff. Eddie plays the guitar a lot better than Jimi played it. The difference is Hendrix didn’t play the guitar, Hendrix WAS the guitar. Major difference. This guy, when he would touch the neck of his guitar, number one, it was upside down and backwards, or backside down and upwards, whatever you want to call it, but it was screwy. When he touched the neck of his guitar it was very hard to see where his fingers ended and the guitar started. I mean there was a kind of glow around the whole thing. I know this sounds all kind of cosmic, but it’s true! He really was an amazing dude. With Van Halen, I think what Eddie’s got is the same kind of wonderful sensibility that Jimi had but the guitar is a technical extension. He’s very organized in the way he plays and very soulful but Hendrix was…you cannot compare those two. In terms of real crash/burn rock’n’roll there’s a band out there which is somewhere between my absolute favorite band, which is Z Z Top, to Metallica, which is from some other place. And then I sort of like but ignore the Bon Jovi’s of the world, Poisons and Whitesnakes and stuff and Ratt. It doesn’t work. I thought for a while Michael Schenker’s group was gonna do it, right after he left the Scorpions and he did that one album that was just wow! This guy has flat got it. And then he just went nowhere. I think, drogas, el drogas.

KS: You stated recently that putting movies on videocassette was like driving an Indy 500 car to work, a major misuse of the medium. What do you feel can be done to rectify that, and is that where “Overview” comes in?

MN: Well, I think you have to look at the whole user event, yeah, and “Overview” is a part of that. “Overview” is information carrier, though. “Overview” was a magazine on videocassette that just brought previews and reviews and things of coming attraction and it was designed as kind of a video guide. I think that hews closer to the form. At the end of the day, I gotta tell you I think home video is an entertainment medium and I think it’s gonna occupy the same place in the minds of the future people that records kind of do now. That’s where I think it’s gonna extend from, not from motion pictures, do you know what I mean? So you have to think in terms of contemporary music, what records are, in order to get a handle on how to use the video medium. That’s me. That’s the way I think of it.

KS: The first version of “Overview” that you put out, about two years ago, it failed. You’re doing something again with it. What will be different in terms of concept, marketing, distribution?

MN: You have to be careful about thinking that “Overview” failed. “Overview” did what it was intended to do, which was to provide me with a test market. The reason that it appears to have failed is because I thought that the test results would be more positive than they were and that I would go with it immediately. The test results were negative nit it wasn’t a result of the magazine. The test results were the result of the distribution system not working. I had to redesign the distribution, redesign the marketing system, and once that was done I felt like I could go forward. Well, that’s what I did. I went forward, redesigned the marketing system, redesigned my distribution system, and you’ll see it this fall. Again with another test. It may not work again, but we’ll try it again.

KS: Good. I think it’s a phenomenal idea. Just to have, like even on cable TV, the access of a library in front of you where you can just get any information you want, read the newspaper, do all that…

MN: Well, you’re talking about the Holy Grail right now and what that is is the interface of the computer with the video medium, movies on demand, pictures on demand.

KS: Does that interest you?

MN: I’m into it up to my eyeballs! And as a matter of fact you’ll see me come back through here in August with some announcements along this line. But with the availability to take the computer, interface it effectively with video, you’re very close to what you want and all of us want. All of us want to download. All of us want a couple of keystrokes, gimme the data. But you know the data stream in this thing is so dense. Do you have any idea of the technological mountain you’re trying to climb there? The data stream — and I may get this wrong — the data stream on a color video picture, one second, is 80 megabytes! If you know anything about computers you know that that’s a lot of storage. And most people have a hard disc and maybe have 20 megabytes, 10 megabytes, 40 megabytes on a hard disc. By the time you get up to 80 megabytes you’re starting to get into some serious computing power and BIG BUCKS. Well, to get one second of color video with sound on a screen uses 80 megabytes. It uses all the storage space that you have on one 80 megabyte hard disc. So just figure out how many billions of bytes you have to have in order to get 90 minutes. Apple, Hypercard, some of these other computer programs are really blazing the trail with graphics based computer technology that’s gonna make something of what you want. You might be having to live with black and white slides for a while or just somebody talking underneath it, but, hey, it’s a start. And that’s gonna be there. Everybody wants this. Me, too.

KS: It’s the 15th Anniversary — another anniversary — of the formation of your company, Pacific Arts. Being a musician for your whole life and moving into working as an executive and working on that level, was it a difficult transition?

MN: Well., let me answer it this way because it’s a question that’s commonly asked, which is how do you manage to change hats so often and so easily and the answer is, which is a good answer, is that I don’t change the hats. It’s the same hat. The dynamic and the values that I employ to write a song, make a record, do a video, make “Tapeheads”, is the same one that you use to run a company and it’s just different applications of the same values.

KS: Are you pleased with where the company is now? Is it beyond what you envisioned at the beginning?

MN: Well, it’s different. I don’t know. Every morning I get up and I wonder is this the right place to be going? And a company is a very hard thing to project, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men… The important thing in a company is to be adaptable. U see a lot of people come to me with systems analysis, management systems, a way to control this, that, and the other thing, how to make 5-year projections, 2-year projections, 1-year projections. They all have their place, but none of them occupies as an important place in the hierarchy of things as being adaptable, being able to think fast, be quick on your feet so that when everything goes to hell in a handbasket you can make a decision and ether do something that either saves the day or gets you out of the mud. And when it comes to running a company it’s a question of getting up, assessing the day, and saying, “Well, am I stuck in the ditch?” Or am I on the road? Or is the ditch really the road?” It gets very subtle and curious out there sometimes. So you know one day I may wake up and there will be no Pacific Arts. One day I may wake up and Pacific Arts will be Warner Brothers. I don’t know.

KS: Let’s talk about “Tapeheads”. I loved it. What was it that attracted you to the project? Was it an almost instant affection for the story that made you feel it was right for Pacific Arts?

MN: Well, it was the Swanky Modes. I mean, you know, there was a script that had running through its core the heart and soul of 160’s R & B. Now I don’t mean to indicate that’s what the movie’s about, ‘cause clearly it isn’t. But I thought, depending on who we cast for the Smoky Modes, this could be an unbelievable thing to see. Then when Same Moore and Junior Walker were cast, I was even more thrilled. Of course, all the musicians in the world began to say, “Gee, can we come down and work?” and “Can we come down and play and do all this stuff?” And then when I started hearing the music that they were recording originally for the movie I was just blown away. So the first thing that appealed to me was the music and at the end of the day the thing that makes me the happiest with it is the music. I think “Ordinary Man” is a hit!

KS: Is filmmaking the primary interest for you? Or is it one of many?

MN: Well, right now, I gotta save “Tapeheads”. I gotta make “Tapeheads” work and that’s what I’m talking to you and what I’m talking to everybody I can talk to about right now ‘cause “Tapeheads” has gotta get a shot. If people can understand what is at the root of “Tapeheads” and it can grow, it’s a point of departure for me to make other musical movies and it has to be demonstrated that this is a valid form. I don’t know whether it’s gonna make a lot of money. It may or may not. So far the video looks like it’s gonna do very well. But it’s the music part of this and the combination of movies and music is where I want to be, it’s where I’m totally focused and where I want to ultimately be. And like I say, maybe the next one will be a heavy metal movie. Don’t you think that would be cool? A heavy metal movie? Think of that. I mean, you go into a nice big theatre, I’m not talking about some little squeezie 14-plex, I’m talking about something with this humongoid screen where you can do all this major kill sound and you go in there and you get a couple of concert stacks. You don’t use the speakers that they’ve got ‘cause they’re kinda twinky, you know, you get some concert stacks and you put ‘em in there and you get some big sound and you just do it a little bit like a concert. Why can’t the cinema experience be like a concert experience?

KS: Would it be something like a “Spinal Tap” or a documentary type?

MN: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, something entirely of its own. You know there’s a dynamic, there’s a creative imperative inherent in heavy metal music. It’s male adolescence, it’s cars and women — spelled W-I-M-M-I-N. They’re into it and it works!

KS: And you can identify with it, as well.

MN: You can identify with it. I mean, it’s not the way I lead my life, I’m a fairly conservative guy. But as an art form, I mean, cripes, you can’t ignore that and I think if you’re looking to put some power up on the screen, you know, these guys have got their hands on the trigger.

KS: Which part of the creative process do you enjoy the most? The ideas, the writing, the filming, the editing, or just sitting back and enjoying the end result?

MN: It’s the end result. Yeah, sit back and watch it. I make movies ‘cause I want to see ‘em! It’s the only reason. I don’t know why else to make a movie. You make a movie ‘cause to want to see it. I don’t like chopping the onions and dicing the carrots and standing over the stove much. I don’t like that much.

KS: Same thing with music, as well?

MN: Yeah, you write music ‘cause you want to hear it. That’s why I started writing music. I couldn’t play the guitar. So I couldn’t sing and so anything anybody else was doing so I said, “OK, let’s all sing this song. I don’t know how to play that’ song.” So you make up a song you can sing.

KS: It’s funny that you talked about “Cruisin’” being early rap, because I wanted to ask you about Run DMC’s “Mary Mary”, which you wrote.

MN: Well, I don’t know. My life has been nothing if not poetic. You know what I mean? (laughs) There are certain closed great parentheses is my life and I wonder what open parentheses I’m in the middle of right now. You know, every once in a while, I’ll look at “Mary Mary” and I think, “My Lord! Is this unusual or what?” And then to see this come back around! People say to me, “Are you surprised that the Monkees are doing so well in their reunion?”, and I say, “No, I’m surprised that Run DMC recorded ‘Mary Mary’ as a rap single!” That’s the surprise.

KS: And they did a real good job, I thought.

MN: I thought so. Sure. I mean, if that’s the rap dynamic. I thought when I was doing “Cruisin’” that what I was doing was just reciting poetry over a very spare and simple musical bed. I like the concept of rap because it gives people who can’t sing the ability to express themselves musically. I think that’s cool. I’m not sure what they’re talking about a lot of the time. I suppose it’s OK to talk about “I like the way you look, baby”, but, I mean, I don’t know, it burns out pretty quick for me.

KS: It seems like you’ve reconciled with your past with the Monkees, recognizing that you’ll always be identified with that.

MN: Well, you’re right. The curious thing to me is that there’s ever any question that I may or may not do that. I mean, why in the world wouldn’t I do that> I don’t have anything to reconcile. It’s always been just fine with me. I knew when I got involved in the thing that IU was going to be a Monkee for the rest of my life. You don’t get involved in things that hot and not have it stay around. Christopher Reeve knew when he took the Superman part that he was gonna be Superman so he better get peaceful with that before he does it. I was peaceful with it before I did it.

KS: Do you think if you did anything with the band, especially a movie, would it adversely affect you or would it fit into the scope of your company? Would you consider something like that?

MN: Sure. We’ve talked about it many times. The problem is not whether or not I’d do it. It’s whether or not anybody would make that movie. And there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of interest in it. I mean, I think it would make an interesting film. You wanna know my guess, I think of there was gonna be something on film it would probably end up on television. Television is the Monkees’ medium. And I don’t know whether or not we could pull it off — the four of us as adults could pull off — what we pulled off 25 years ago. Probably not. So that you have to look that pretty hard.

KS: Would you get involved in a Monkees’ record, maybe contributing a couple of songs?

MN: Sure. Absolutely. All those things are up in the air and up in the wind and we talk about ‘em all the time. I would’ve gone on tour, but I didn’t have the time. I was just finishing “Square Dance” and just starting “Tapeheads” and as a matter of fact I told 'em I would. We were gonna go out and just do half a dozen dates, you know, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, something like that. They called up and said, “Listen, we went to get a drink of water and the faucet fell off in our hand and now it’s 280 dates.” I said, “Well, partners, I can’t do that. I’ve got 25 employees here. I can’t walk away from this.”

KS: On the follow-up tour in 1987 they did quite a few of your songs, “Circle Sky” and “You Just May Be The One”. Was there any plan of your doing a few shows in 1987? It seemed that’s why they had those songs in.

MN: That is constantly in our minds. I think they’re gonna come back this year. We’re trying right now to figure out how to make some dates work. We tried to make one work in Philadelphia. I couldn’t get there. We tried to make one work in Chicago. I couldn’t get there. You know, it’s a nightmare.

KS: There’s a video floating around of the Greek Theatre in 1986. It was just so heartwarming to see.

MN: Oh, you should’ve been there! Oh, it was terrific, it was great. You know, we just tried to figure out the right way to do it and decided I’d come on at the end. And so we put together a couple of numbers and, you know, he guys went through their whole show and it was like, “So long, goodbye,” they’re taking their final bows and then I walk out from the edge and hey hit me with the spotlight and I’m telling you the place went up for grabs! It was unbelievable. It exploded!

KS: The big question is did you have to relearn “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and “Listen to the Band”? You were playing that lick on “Pleasant Valley Sunday” pretty good.

MN: No, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. Number one, it’s not that hard. Like I say, it’s a big part of my life. I like that part of my life. I wish I could do it more and, if we can figure out a way to do it more…you know, we talk all the time, trying to figure out how to get me back un on the TV show. You know, they’re off in Europe right now doing some big tours and I’d love to be there. I’d love it! It’s be great! But…we gotta get people out there to see “Tapeheads”. (laughs)

KS: The Monkees are receiving a Star this year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. How do you feel about that and will you attend?

MN: Oh, yeah! You bet! I feel great!

KS: If you were watching TV and a Monkees episode came on, would you watch it?

MN: No. I’ve seen ‘em too many times. I’ve seen ‘em all dozens of times.

KS: You saw them as a spectator in ’86 in Texas. What was that like?

MN: Well, that was real edifying. I’ve been asked about that before, too, and the one thing that was obvious to me was that Micky should’ve been in front all along. You know, he is so good. Why we stuck him back on the drums, that was one of the dumber things we ever did. Between David and Micky up front, I mean, you got two power hitters up here, you know? I just stand there, I don’t do anything. I go over and stand by my amp and play the guitar. And Peter probably could have been a better drummer than Micky because Peter’s a better musician than Micky. So I don’t know, maybe we should’ve given Micky a bass and let him play bass or something, but he was great. It was wonderful to see, too, I’ll tell you.

KS: “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” was the first song you guys all recorded together, which you wrote. The first session, was it a big relief or a lot of pressure?

MN: Well, there wasn’t any pressure to it. You know, there wasn’t a lot of support for us playing, because it was like, “Come on, guys, you’re actors,” and “How are you gonna play and make the music? You know, it’s just too big of a workload, number one. Number two, what kind of material are you gonna play? What are you gonna do?” So it wasn’t a question of “Can you play, can you make decent music?” It was a question of “If you play, how are we gonna make all this fit into what we’re doing? ‘Cause there’s so much other stuff!” So the pressure was never really “Can you play and can you play well?” The question was “OK, we figure you can play and we figure you can play well enough and we know Nesmith writes and we know the rest of you guys write, so maybe this well all come about, but then what?” And that was the big question, because as they predicted it got tougher and tougher and tougher as we got busier and busier and busier.

KS: The “Live ‘67” album on Rhino is interesting to listen to because you guys were a great garage band.

MN: That’s exactly what we were. We were a garage band.

KS: Have you heard it?

MN: Well, I mean, I heard it when we made it. (laughs)

KS: It had electricity that blew away a lot of critics when they reviewed it, and it had an almost psychedelic version of “Steppin’ Stone”.

MN: It was a psychedelic version of “Steppin’ Stone”. Unequivocally.

KS: What direction do you think the Monkees would have gone if “HEAD” had been a success?

MN: We would have just continued to make films and records. Abandoned television. Probably have jumped into the video form about the time I did. That’s my guess. We would’ve stayed right there.

KS: Would you have veered into a country direction, as “Good Clean Fun” and ”Never Tell A Woman Yes” indicated for you?

MN: No, I don’t think so. Micky was always the voice and Davy was always the voice of the Monkees and they didn’t…Micky was never comfortable singing those country type songs. But you know Micky’s got a terrific pop voice.

KS: I’ve interviewed him, but he seems very insecure and underestimated himself about how good he is and what a great showman he is.

MN: Yeah. Yeah, he does. That’s one of the reasons he ended up sticking back there on drums. I was like, “Yeah, sure, I’ll play drums.” “Mick, get up, get out here.”

KS: In 1969 you went to Nashville and recorded material for an album side of a Monkees LP. What happened with that?

MN: Well, nothing. By that time he show was off the air and there wasn’t any place to put it. That band went on to become a band that had a little bit of success in their own right called Area Code 615 and they were a session band. One of those songs that we recorded was “Listen to the Band”. And then there were some other songs in there that I can’t remember what they were. “Saint Matthew”, I think, was a song that we did. There was some other stuff. It just got stashed in a vault somewhere.

KS: Why was the live “Circle Sky” replaced with a studio version? A lot of critics have said it was a fantastic live performance. In fact, Peter felt it was the best recorded example of the band.

MN: Well, that was done, and I think Peter’s right. I think, if you talk about the Monkees as a band, you have to look at “Circle Sky”, number one, and “Girl I Knew Somewhere”, number wo. I mean, that’s basically a garage band. And that’s the way garage bands play — loud and fast. (laughs)

KS: Were there any songs Davy or Micky sang that you were especially partial to, that you wish you’d sand? Like you did a demo of “Daddy’s Song” first.

MN: No, I was always happy with the way the vocals went down. Every time I’d sing a Monkees’ song it’d sound like a country tune…and at the time having it sound like a country tune wasn’t a good idea. Maybe it’s different now, I don’t know.

KS: It’s interesting how critics hated the Monkees but the public loved them, while your solo career as a country rock pioneer was a hit with the critics but not with the public.

MN: Well, you have to let history write that chapter, Ken. I don’t know what place I have in all of that and don’t really much think about it one way or the other.

KS: One last question, if you could choose three Nesmith songs for a time capsule that would be discovered in a thousand years from now…

MN: Well, I wrote one like that, you know. Because I thought about that. It’s called “Capsule” and it’s on the “Infinite Rider” LP…

[Transcribed from a PDF found on Monkees Live Almanac]

#Long but worth the read #Nez #Mike Nesmith #Text Transcript

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Transcript of Learning to Become a Leader

Transcript of Learning to Become a Leader written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Zephyr CMS. It’s a modern cloud based CMS system that’s licensed only to agencies. You can find them at zephyrcms.com, more about this later in the show.

John Jantsch: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Ryan Hawk. He is a keynote speaker, author, advisor, and the host of his own podcast, The Learning Leader Show. We’re going to talk about his new book called Welcome to Management: How to Grow From Top Performer to Excellent Leader. So, Ryan, thanks for joining me!

Ryan Hawk: John, it’s great to have you, and I have to say at the top, before we even get into it… I’m not trying to hijack your show, but you gave me one of the most thoughtful gifts ever, a significant sum of money to Donors Choose, and because of you, I got to sit down with my daughters and choose incredible classrooms to donate that money to because of the very thoughtful gift. And all I did to earn that was just simply be a referral source for a speaking gig. And so, I thought you went…

Ryan Hawk: I still remember, it was probably over a year ago now, but above and beyond, gift-giving wise, and certainly created a cool experience for me with my family. So, I’m very appreciative of that, man.

John Jantsch: Well, and I’ll just take the opportunity to let other people know. You made a tremendous referral to me that was very valuable in terms of revenue and connection, and all that kind of good stuff; you had the trust to do that. But also, it took me five minutes of research to realize that that was going to be a gift that touched your heart because of the things that you’re into, and I think, I’m not patting myself on the back, I’m just saying, a lesson for people trying to create better experiences. It’s so easy to find out what people are into today and personalize things, and shame on us if we don’t do that.

Ryan Hawk: It was a fantastic, fantastic gift. Very thoughtful, so I’m very appreciative and have… The cool thing, too, is it has a ripple effect because not only does it impact the people that we donated the money to, but also it gave me the idea to give that gift to others who have similar values, and so more people have received that gift because I didn’t even think of it as an idea until I received it. So, thank you, man.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and I actually like to support that organization, and what I love to do is go find teachers that are requesting specific books that I think are awesome, that maybe…

Ryan Hawk: Oh.

John Jantsch: Like For Whom The Caged Bird Sings or something like that for a classroom, and it kind of lets you support… even though that author’s not alive anymore, it really kind of lets you support the work, as well. I kind of have fun doing that.

Ryan Hawk: I love it, love it.

John Jantsch: All right, we’d better get into this topic here. A lot of times when I have people on my show, it’s like, “Here’s your new book!”, and everybody’s like, that’s the starting point of Ryan Hawk is his new book, right? How did you get here? Give us a little backstory.

Ryan Hawk: How much time do we have, man? No, I think that… My background, John, has been in athletics my whole life. And so, when it comes to leadership, I learned to lead as a quarterback of a football, and the point guard of a basketball team, and I pitched and played shortstop on a baseball team. Was fortunate to earn a scholarship to play in college, I played quarterback in college initially at Miami University; ended up trying extremely hard to be the starting quarterback but getting narrowly beat out… I say narrowly, but it probably wasn’t, beat out by another pretty good quarterback named Ben Roethlisberger, who later went on to, or is still doing it now, Superbowl MVP two-time winner with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Ryan Hawk: And so, I transferred and finished my collegiate playing career at Ohio University, graduated and then played in the arena football league professionally for a few years, before then making my way into the profession of selling, and I worked with a great go called Lexus Nexus with fantastic training, and I learned and grew and was able to then do well enough to get the opportunity to get promoted into a management role, then a director role and then ultimately, I was a vice president of North American sales for that company before I elected to leave. And the reason I left is midway through my career there, I had earned my MBA, I was considering going back to school again because our company gave us tuition reimbursement…

Ryan Hawk: And as I was looking at another graduate degree, I was very fortunate to have a dinner set up with a guy by the name of Todd Wagner. Todd Wagner is Mark Cuban’s business partner, and Todd, I got to dinner a little early and so did Todd, and we sat down one-on-one before anyone else got there, and I was peppering him with all of these questions about building broadcast.com, which is what he built with his business partner, Mark Cuban, until the final moment where he’s sitting across from the leaders at Yahoo!, and this is back when Yahoo! was like Google is now. Sitting across the leaders from Yahoo!, and he says, “Look, you’re going to either buy us or you’re going to have to compete with us. You decide,” and they walked away with 5.7 billion dollars.

Ryan Hawk: And I was just blown away by the intricacies of his story, and deconstruction of success and excellence; I was fascinated by it, and I thought, “I would much rather go directly to the sources of that knowledge, people who live the lives of that, as opposed to going back to school.” And so, I elected to create my own school, and that school now became known as The Learning Leader Show, which is my podcast. And now, five years later, 350 episodes, amazing opportunities come to you when you follow your curiosity and obsessions with great rigor. And I think that’s a big part of my story, that that’s where books come from, and keynote speaking, and I was able to leave corporate America two years ago, more than two years ago now, to do this full-time podcast, speak, consult, write books.

Ryan Hawk: And it’s pretty cool. It’s a pretty cool opportunity that I feel very fortunate to get to live in this manner.

John Jantsch: So, let’s talk specifically about the new book. The title, and even subtitle, suggests that this is for somebody for whom a management role might be new, or that might be an aspiration. Would that be an accurate statement?

Ryan Hawk: It is, John. I’ll tell you the reason I wrote it, and the title actually came… I would imagine it’s probably a mutual friend of ours, I had a number of early readers who were podcast guests of mine, and one of them was Liz Weissman, the author of Rookie Smarts and Multipliers, two incredible books, and she runs a fascinating, really helpful company out west. And Liz… because it was going to be, like, The Learning Leader, or Learn to Lead, or along those lines, and Liz says, “The title of this book is Welcome to Management, and here’s why,” and we walked through it.

Ryan Hawk: And the reason is the focus of the book is the time in my career when I went from individual contributor to manager for the first time. The purpose of the book is to help people who are going through that, or who will be going through that, to make far fewer mistakes than I did. And so, it’s a combination of stories and science from my life as well as the lives of the people I’ve been fortunate enough to interview for my show, and I combined all of that together, and fortunately, when I wrote the proposal, the great people at McGraw-Hill decided they wanted to buy it and publish it. So, that’s where we’re at now.

John Jantsch: So, I’ll stick with, because of your background in sports, I’ll stick with a pretty common sports analogy. The managers of particularly baseball teams are rarely the star center-fielder shortstop. They’re always the catcher.

Ryan Hawk: Right. Or the backup quarterback, yeah.

John Jantsch: Or the backup quarterback, right, yeah. So, is there a message in that?

Ryan Hawk: Well, actually, I would say… and that’s a great point. I would say the great ones seem to have that makeup, John, of the catcher or the backup quarterback, right? Because they had to grind so hard just to survive that they needed to understand the game at a deep level, and because of that, they were able to teach it to other people, whereas the star player, it’s a little bit more, in some cases, natural or intuitive, and they’re not as good at explaining it. I’ve had math teachers like that, that they were gifted and intelligent when it comes to doing the math problem, but they couldn’t explain it very well.

Ryan Hawk: What the issue is in my profession I grew up in and in the profession of selling is, typically when there’s a management opening, the leadership teams look at the top of the sales stack rankings and they say, “Those top three or four people, we’re going to interview them for the job,” and then just hire one of those people. And that’s exactly how I got the job.

Ryan Hawk: And unfortunately, what it takes to be great at a role of leading and serving other people has almost nothing to do of what it takes to be great as an individual contributor in the role. There’s a little bit, but not much. And so, that’s why I wrote about the mistakes and the learnings that I made myself in that role, that I just wasn’t prepared, I didn’t have a clue of what it took to lead a team of people when it came to the business world, and I had a lot to learn.

Ryan Hawk: And so, my hope is that people can read this work that I’ve put a lot of effort into, and not make the same mistakes that I made. They can learn from the mistakes of other people, and I think we call that wisdom. That’s my hope is what happens with this book.

John Jantsch: Well, I think I know how you’re going to answer this, but a lot of people would suggest that leaders are kind of born, that there’s certain makeup, certain mentality, certain level of patience, that not everybody has. But I’m guessing you are going to suggest that, while there may be people that are more suited naturally, anybody can learn this.

Ryan Hawk: What do you think? Not like, what do you think I think? I’m curious, what do you think?

John Jantsch: I think anybody can learn anything they’re willing to learn.

Ryan Hawk: Including leadership?

John Jantsch: Well, I think there are experiences in leadership that probably teach you a lot of things, but I think your own sort of self-evaluation and awareness is what you’ve got to learn first.

Ryan Hawk: Yeah. I think, much like many areas of life, the answer is not black and white. I mean, the world in general, I don’t love the thought of having to pick one or the other in anything. In anything, including politics. I just don’t identify that way.

Ryan Hawk: And I think when it comes to leadership, certainly there are inborn, innate traits you’re born that could help you, but when it comes to, do we all have the capacity or the ability to learn and grow and improve, and lead in our way within our personality? Absolutely!

Ryan Hawk: I’ve been fortunate to speak with people on all ranges of personality traits and assessments that you could go through, on all of them ranging from one end to the other end, and yet, they’ve all had that one thing in common is, they have found a way to sustain excellence. So, yes, I certainly believe it is a learned skill if you desire and if you want to do it.

Ryan Hawk: But, yeah, there may be bits and pieces, when it comes to I think there are some people who have… Like Jocko Willink told me, he’s like, “Well, you didn’t get to choose to have the voice, literally the sound of your voice…” Sometimes in the military, in his case, as a Navy SEAL, that is helpful. That’s not everything; that doesn’t make you a leader. But it is helpful to have a voice like Jocko’s to lead as Navy SEALs.

Ryan Hawk: So, there are little things that certainly can help you, or that make it harder for you, but for the most part, yes, it’s a learned skill.

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John Jantsch: Let’s talk about, a lot of people, especially since you are suggesting Welcome to Management, a lot of people, their only guide has been how they’ve been managed.

Ryan Hawk: Yeah.

John Jantsch: So, do you find that sometimes that there’s sort of a need to un-learn?

Ryan Hawk: Well, when I was a rep and a new manager, I had a great mentor, and he was a senior VP of our group; his name’s Rex Caswell, and Rex said, “I want you to keep a notebook. On the left side, write all the great things that your manager does that helps you, that inspires you, that makes you perform on a high level. And on the other side, write all the bad things. Because someday, you’re going to become a manager, and I want you to not do the bad things, and only do the good things.”

Ryan Hawk: And as you can imagine, I still… growing up in that age, I didn’t have any terrible bosses, but that right side was still far bigger than the left side. And so, I think the problem, even something like an example of how you run a meeting, or how meetings are done, there’s a lot of bad things out there about meetings. You just follow what your manager does, for the most part, because you don’t know any different. You don’t know any better. And that happens in across all aspects of management, and leadership is… especially if you’re like me, you don’t really have any other experiences so you just follow what the person before you did.

Ryan Hawk: And unfortunately, that can be bad. And that is why it’s so impactful and why I chose to focus on this specific area for my first book, is because you have so much… and I mean this in a good way, but you have so much power, and I want people to use that power and influence for good because if you do all of these, if you understand how to do all of this part of the job well, think of the impact you’re going to have on people because the people that report to you, they’re going to follow you. They’re going to act like you act, and so, you are creating more leaders, more managers in the world, as a good one, so let’s use that power and influence for good. And that’s my hope with this.

John Jantsch: Do you think, even over the last few years, cultural changes… companies seem to be not quite as hierarchal, generational changes… Have those things, those dynamics, brought kind of new attention to this type of manager as a top performer, perhaps, or as a leader? And again, I suspect every generation says the same thing. “Oh,” you know, “This next generation coming up has to be managed differently.” Is that just the human condition, or are we living in a time where the change is more dramatic?

Ryan Hawk: I think there is a lot more awareness and knowledge when it comes to this. There’s so much written about all of this, so I do think there is more out there about it. The problem…

Ryan Hawk: So, I did some informal research as I was writing this book, John, and I spoke with… I work with leadership teams in companies of all shapes and sizes, from the Salesforce.coms to small businesses here in Ohio where I live, and all over the world. And the one question I asked anyone who was in a leadership role was, “Tell me exactly and specifically the process of your training when you got your first promotion. What was it? What did you do? Remind me.”

Ryan Hawk: And I was blown away because the overwhelming majority, and these are even some that are at world-class companies that you read about, the overwhelming majority was extremely underwhelming, meaning there may have been a half-day boot camp, or a binder, or like, “Hey, go to this virtual meeting.” And some actually had nothing. So, that tells me…

Ryan Hawk: And some of these were years ago, so I would imagine some of these companies have gotten better, but for the most part, I was amazed at the lack of training and preparation for people as they make what I think is the biggest leap in their career.

John Jantsch: You, and hopefully I’ve set this up enough, I mean, you present a framework for how to do this. Is there a way for you to briefly describe to people what a framework for being an excellent leader looks like?

Ryan Hawk: Well, one of the frameworks I think, when it comes to behaviors on a daily basis, that I illustrate and I think that I’ve built for myself based on learning from so many other incredible leaders on my show, one is just to have a mindset of, “How am I going to behave on a daily basis?”

Ryan Hawk: So, for me, and I call this… what Charlie Munger might say, of how you build your learning machine. It’s really four parts. The four parts every day when it comes to, I think good, good leadership, as far as how you disperse information. So, starting with…

Ryan Hawk: I think we all need to be consumers on a regular basis. You need to create an intake engine of information, of knowledge. So, read books, listen to podcasts, watch TED Talks, have one-on-one conversations with mentors. Do that on a regular basis.

Ryan Hawk: Two, you can’t just be a learner. You also need to be a doer. Experiment. Put some of your learnings into action, actually put them into play, see what happens. Have an experimental mindset. Third, we must take time to step back and reflect on what we’re learning and what we’re experimenting, what we’re doing. Whether it’s, for example, a new way to do a one-on-one with a person, or a new way to run a meeting, right? Let’s take time to reflect and analyze on how we’ve done, why it worked, why it didn’t, and what we’re going to do moving forward.

Ryan Hawk: And then fourth, the best leaders that I’ve found in my life were fantastic teachers, and the reason why teachers I think develop so much knowledge and wisdom is because the process of preparing to teach somebody is the essence of learning. What you’re forced to get… just like you know; you’ve written six books, right? When you’re forced to write it down with the thought of teaching it or sharing it with somebody else, that’s when all of the learning happens. So, I think regularly putting yourself in positions to be a teacher, whether it’s in written form or speaking or both, is really helpful. When you see these incredibly smart professors or keynote speakers who’ve been doing it for a while, they really know their stuff. Why? Because they’ve regularly got clarity of thought.

Ryan Hawk: They’ve regularly sat down to think about, “What do I think? What do I believe? I have to add value to the lives of the people I’m getting ready to teach. I need to know my stuff!” Right? And so, that takes a lot of time and effort to put that together, and I think that four-part process, for me, has been extremely helpful as I’ve implemented it over the years.

John Jantsch: Do you have a personal kind of… whether it’s morning or evening, routine to kind of get your head right, and before you go out there and do whatever it is you’re going to do? Do you have kind of a practice or ritual?

Ryan Hawk: I have to be a morning guy. I know morning routines are spoken about far too much now, but I think for me, that is a big deal because… married, we’re raising five daughters; I need time to myself to prepare for the day, and so that usually happens before everybody wakes up. So, I am a big morning routine guy when it comes to writing, reading, getting my mind going, stretching my body, moving my body. A big morning workout guy. It gets me in the mode to do work, to create the stuff that I create, or to prepare for a podcast or a speech.

Ryan Hawk: So, I do a lot of that hard work early in the morning before my family wakes up, and then to get them off to school, and then it’s time to get to work for that day. So, as trite as it sounds and as overused as this is nowadays, for me, though, that’s a big deal. And so, I have created a ritual around what I do first thing when I wake up, and it’s been very helpful for me in order to get the rest of the day going.

John Jantsch: Yeah, I actually… kind of the same thing. When my kids were small, I started that ritual, and I’ve just never given it up.

Ryan Hawk: Really?

John Jantsch: Now, they’re off grown, and…

Ryan Hawk: What do you do?

John Jantsch: Well, I get up about five o’clock, and meditation’s one of the first things I do, and then I read, and then I journal, and I exercise just about every day.

Ryan Hawk: Wow! Do you use a guided meditation app, or…

John Jantsch: I’ve been a big fan of Deepak Chopra for a long time, and he does have a guided meditation app that has… something new shows up in it every single day.

Ryan Hawk: Wow! Nice! Nice.

John Jantsch: Yeah. And I don’t want to turn this into a commercial for me, but my most current book, recent book, is actually a daily meditation guide, so to speak, almost. But written in the context of entrepreneurs. So, I kind of wrote the book that I wanted to have with me every morning.

Ryan Hawk: Love it! I love it, man. Yeah, that’s good stuff.

John Jantsch: One last question I want to… Culture’s a really hot kind of almost buzzword these days in business. A lot of what you are writing about seems to really be the essence of culture in an organization, isn’t it?

Ryan Hawk: It is. I think there are really two different types of cultures. There are more, but I’ll talk about two of them. And I’ve worked in both. And the saying that I really believe in is that compliance can be commanded, commitment cannot.

Ryan Hawk: And I want to work with leaders, I want to help leaders build committed organizations, committed teams. And so, that takes the leader acting in a manner in which somebody wants to follow, right? We all can picture right now, if you pause for a second and think about that boss or coach or leader that you were so committed to, you loved following that person; he or she was fantastic at helping you see kind of the vision, and helping you add your part in order to achieve whatever that mission or goal is.

Ryan Hawk: And so, for me I think that’s why my book starts with leading yourself, and that’s the first section because you can’t really build a committed organization, a committed culture until you take the time to lead yourself first, and then you can build that and continuously lead it. So, really, it’s packed full of kind of the actions, the thoughts, the behaviors, the commonalities among leaders who have built sustainable, excellent businesses, cultures, teams to say, “Okay, let me learn from them to say, what could I, again, test, implement into my world to see what works best for me.”

Ryan Hawk: That’s the whole purpose of doing it. And then, obviously, it gets tactical as well because there are some tactical aspects of the job that I just wasn’t aware of when I got promoted, that I’m hopeful to help with, too.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and I’m sure you’ve interviewed a lot of folks on your show, and probably a resounding message comes out that it has to be intentional, that you have to practice it, that you have to keep it top-of-mind because it’s really easy to slip into bad habits. And so, good leadership habits are something you practice, aren’t they?

Ryan Hawk: 100%, yeah. I mean, it’s really… We have a phrase, “You’ve never arrived. You’re always becoming.” It’s just an iterative process that is always taking place, and I think the people who really… the comparison game is really just comparing yourself versus your previous self, and that’s hard, but I think a very valuable way to view leadership, to view life in general, is to be in a constant comparison with your previous self to say, “Am I getting better? Am I growing?” And that’s been a big, big mindset shift for me that’s been helpful.

John Jantsch: So, I’m visiting with Ryan Hawk, author of Welcome to Management. Depending upon when you’re listening to this, the book is available January 28th. You want to tell people where they can find out more about you, Ryan, and your work?

Ryan Hawk: Absolutely! If you’re listening on your phone and you don’t want to go to a mobile website, you can text the word “learners”, L-E-A-R-N-E-R-S, “learners” to 44222. So, text “learners” at 44222, or if you want to see just about everything that I do, you can just go to LearningLeader.com and all of my podcasts, books, everything I do is at LearningLeader.com.

John Jantsch: Awesome. Well, Ryan, thanks for stopping by, and hopefully next time I’m in Ohio, we can connect up in real life.

Ryan Hawk: I’d love it, man! Thank you so much, John.

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