Show Notes:

Liz Wiseman
The inner workings of an impact player. “An impact player is a talented standout contributor who raises the level of play for the whole team. I started this research with the assumption that this extends to the work world. If you ask any manager who their impact players are, they will tell you. Those names come to mind very quickly, and sometimes they don’t even really know why. There’s just something about those people. I want to know what makes those people different and what makes them tick.”

Andre Norman
Top dog status. “The better you think and the more savage and cunning you are, the more status you get. It took nine months for me to get kicked out of the state of Massachusetts. It took me two and a half years to get kicked out of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I’ve been kicked out of nine different facilities in nine different states for being violent and incorrigible. I’m a force to be reckoned with.”

Randi McGinn
A trial attorney’s secret to winning cases. “He or she who tells the best story wins. That’s how it works. You have to become a master storyteller, and you do that by becoming a student of storytelling. If you’re watching a movie or book that affects you greatly, you need to break down why it is that that book or movie was so effective and what about the story was so effective. Use those tactics in the courtroom.”

Kevin O’Leary
The beginning of Shark Tank. “I got a phone call when I was working on another show for the Discovery Channel called Project Earth as an investor in London, England. It was Mark Burnett. Everybody knew who Mark was because of Survivor and how successful it was. He said to me, ‘Listen, I’ve got a show based on Dragons’ Den, which you can see on BBC tonight in London, but I’m going to call it Shark Tank here in America. I’m looking for a real a**hole and you’re it. Don’t go changing. I’m looking for you. Get over here. There are two tickets at the airport. I want to meet you at Shutters tomorrow morning to talk about this opportunity for you, and you’ve got to get on the plane right now.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that. That’s crazy. I’ve got to fly for like 11 hours and then turn around?’ He said, ‘Yeah, you want to do this.’ That’s exactly what I did….Now, I’m rolling in next week for the 14th season. That was 14 years ago, and every year Mark says the same thing to me. He says, ‘I’m looking for that a**hole. Don’t go changing.’”

Jesse Cole
The OG entertainer. “What P.T. Barnum did back in the 1800s was legendary. He was the best marketer, promoter, writer, speaker, and actor around. There’s a reason he was best friends with presidents and met the queen. He knew how to bring together a cast of characters and entertain anyone at any time. I put him up there with Walt Disney in his ability to do so. Sometimes he gets a bad reputation because people will take quotes and think he said them when in reality it was rival competitors. He never said, ‘There’s a sucker born every minute,’ even though many people think he did. It was his rival who pinned it on him.”

Robert Simon
Rich in character. “The wealthiest people I know are the ones that are the most giving with their time and helping others. I believe in karma and that in some form or fashion, it comes back to you. My dad always taught me to be nice to everybody. There’s no reason to be an a**hole. I judge people now based on how nice they are to the staff when we go out to eat. If people think they’re better than anybody, that’s not someone I want to be around. If you’re cool and putting out good energy, everyone else will be too.”

Robert Greene
Who am I? “In order to know who you are, you have to begin with the idea that came from Socrates: You don’t know who you are. You are ignorant. Ignorance is the source of knowledge. By admitting to yourself that you know nothing, you can then begin to learn. If you think you know who you are, that’s a sure sign that you’re fooling yourself. You’re believing the script that you want to believe, and you haven’t spent the time or the true introspection it takes to discover who you really are.”

Ben Crump
Sacrificing for the greater good. “My mission is to try to make sure that marginalized people, especially people of color and especially Black people, have an equal opportunity at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In fighting for these equal opportunities and chances at justice, you understand that you have to sacrifice a lot. I always feel like I’m running out of time, because it seems like we can’t keep up with the hashtags of how many marginalized people of color are killed unjustly by the people who are supposed to protect and serve them. Every day, we get up to fight to prevent the next hashtags from happening.”

Alex Repas
Practice what you preach. “What really attracted me to Crisp was the fact that everyone has enormous goals and ambition. Crisp doesn’t settle for anything less than, and you can see that from the moment you walk through the door. Other companies put their core values on the wall, and we do it too, but the difference is that it’s spoken into existence with the people around Crisp. You can see that from how much collaboration happens every day.”

John Morgan
Coming to the fork in the road. “When I was a young lawyer, I only ever wanted to practice personal injury. I got a job at a personal injury firm and was doing really well. I was great at getting business. I lived in union halls and union dive bars. At the 2.5 year point, they came to review me for the next year, and I wasn’t happy with what they gave me. These moments come to everybody and it’s like a fork in the road. When you come to a fork in the road, you can do one of three things: 1) Take it and go straight, 2) go right, or 3) go left and start your own thing. So when I got to the fork after my review, I went straight to my office, called some people, and within a week, I started my own law firm.”

RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman
The Wiseman Group
The Savannah Bananas
P.T. Barnum
Walt Disney
Find Your Yellow Tux: How to Be Successful by Standing Out by Jesse Cole
Fans First: Change the Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience by Jesse Cole
McGinn, Montoya, Love, & Curry
Shark Tank
The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
Justice HQ
Simon Law Group
Civil: Ben Crump (Netflix documentary)
Ben Crump Law
You Can’t Teach Hungry: Creating the Multimillion Dollar Firm by John Morgan
Crisp