673: Daniel Coyle - Opening Yellow Doors, Mastering Your Craft, World-Class Storytelling Techniques, Great Questions to Ask, Building Your Community, The Power of Curiosity, and How to Flourish in Life

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

Episode 673: Daniel Coyle – Opening Yellow Doors, Mastering Your Craft, World-Class Storytelling, the Power of Community, and Flourishing in Life
Date: February 2, 2026
Guest: Daniel Coyle (Author: The Talent Code, The Culture Code, Flourish)
Host: Ryan Hawk

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Overview

This episode dives deep into Daniel Coyle’s lifelong study of high-performing teams and flourishing communities, exploring his latest work Flourish. The conversation focuses on mastering the craft of writing and storytelling, the concept of “yellow doors” as opportunities for growth, the anatomy of great teams, the importance of curiosity, community-building, and actionable ways to flourish both individually and collectively. Dan draws on powerful real-world examples, from personal anecdotes to the incredible survival of Chilean miners and lessons gleaned from elite organizations like the Cleveland Guardians and Zingerman’s Deli.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Mastering the Craft of Writing and Storytelling

• Continuous Learning and Craft:

  • Dan emphasizes that mastery is a journey, not a destination. Simplicity in writing, achieved through years of refining your craft, is central.
    • Quote: “In the journey of craft, it always involves getting simpler. And is there an end to that? I know I could definitely be simpler because simple is not easy.” (Dan Coyle, 04:00)
  • Dan’s admiration for writer George Saunders as someone who embodies simplicity and clarity in writing. (02:49–05:13)

• Parenting & Storytelling as a Family Craft:

  • Dan reflects on coaching his daughter in writing and how their learning became a two-way street—both teaching and learning from one another.
    • Quote: “It was much more of a rich two-way dialogue that I think ended up helping both of us a little bit.” (Dan Coyle, 08:41)
  • On “Power of the Pen,” a competition turning writing into a varsity sport for students. (07:11–08:41)

2. The Function and Flourishing of Community

• The Myth of Individual Achievement:
  • Dan reflects on how even the most “individual” successes are always underpinned by a network of support—be it family or community.
    • Quote: “When you scratch one of those individual stories, what is revealed as a community of people.” (Dan Coyle, 10:29)
  • He dedicates his work to his wife Jenny, describing her as the bedrock of his ecosystem. (10:04–11:50)

3. The “Yellow Doors” Metaphor: Seizing Unexpected Opportunities

• Origin and Explanation:
  • From psychologist Lisa Miller, “yellow doors” refer to ambiguous, often unnoticed opportunities—neither clearly good (green) nor bad (red)—that lie at the edge of your attention.
    • Quote: “That’s where life actually happens…when you think of your life as complicated, you think, oh, what’s the next good move? … Complexity is like, wait a minute. There’s something opening up. Let me check that out.” (Dan Coyle, 12:48–16:58)
  • “Living into the question” (Rilke): Instead of seeking the right answer, flourishing is about continually probing and experiencing.
• Complicated vs. Complex Problems:
  • Complicated: Step-by-step (like building a car).
  • Complex: Ever-shifting, requires probing (like raising a teenager). (13:50–16:58)

4. The Power of Curiosity

• Curiosity in Elite Teams:
  • Top-performing organizations (like the Cleveland Guardians) are defined by relentless curiosity and dialogue—not by leaders with all the answers.
    • Quote: “Answers stop conversations… Questions bring people together.” (Dan Coyle, 18:44)
  • Dan’s experience of being “peppered” with questions by elite leaders, flipping the typical guru/learner dynamic.
• Questions as Leadership Tools:
  • Great leaders “lob in a question then close their mouth.” Good questions unlock agency, energy, and creativity in teams.
    • Sample Questions:
      • “What’s energizing you right now?” (Dan Coyle, 23:59)
      • “What do you want to do more of?”
      • “What do you want to do differently?”
      • “Describe five years from now, things go great. What’s an average Tuesday?”
    • These shift attention from the narrow to the possible.

5. Anatomy of Great Teams: The DNA

• Three Core Ingredients:
  • Deep belonging (“love your neighbor”)
  • Sacrifice for the group, especially by peer leaders (ex: football example of teamwork and adversity)
  • Curiosity as a sustaining force against complacency
    • “Teams that do not get gassed up on their own stuff… get curious about that next mountain and they get curious about each other.” (Dan Coyle, 28:17)
  • Small, meaningful rituals (ex: OKC Thunder’s tribute to traded players)

6. Extreme Example: The Chilean Miners’ Survival

• Story:
  • 33 men trapped 2,000 feet underground for 52 days (2010). Initial chaos but quickly turned to community.
  • The leader removes symbols of hierarchy—“there are no bosses; we are all one”—sparking self-organization, ritual, and collective meaning-making.
  • Key insight: Survival was driven by pausing to create shared meaning and presence, not by executing a strategy from above.
    • Quote: “What let them do that was not information. It wasn’t analysis. It was letting go. It was having this moment of meaning, of making meaning and creating presence.” (Dan Coyle, 33:09)
• Application:
  • The lesson for all—flourishing is rooted in community, not just the achievement or information.

7. Practical Lessons for Everyday Leaders

• You Flourish Through Others:
  • The myth of rugged individual flourishing is wrong; genuine fulfillment is relational.
    • “Self improvement…actually that’s not as powerful as shared improvement.” (Dan Coyle, 36:04)
  • “Who’s in my garden?” Think of career building as growing a garden, not playing a game. Nurture your community intentionally.
• Service as Cure for Burnout:
  • When feeling depleted, ask “Who can I help right now?” (ex: advice from baseball manager Craig Counsell, 38:13)

8. The Importance of Showing Up and Building Real-World Community

• Saying Yes to Yellow Doors:
  • Dan’s story of reluctantly joining a rock climbing community, resulting in unexpected meaningful relationships.
    • Quote: “That yellow door…is really what has changed for you… now, five, six years later, we’re doing trips and playing music and going skiing and it’s this whole new group.” (Dan Coyle, 39:17–40:05)
• Technology’s Double-Edged Sword:
  • Devices create the illusion of connection, but true thriving is rooted in in-person, real-world relationships and community.
    • “Community is how we do that…some of these places I visited, they were inspiring because they could kind of flip the switch” (Dan Coyle, 45:05–46:49)

9. Research Methodology: Immersion and Curiosity

• How Dan Chooses Topics:
  • He seeks groups with unique outlier results, driven by curiosity and a willingness to “probe” into complex realities.
    • Quote: “As I got older and made mistakes, I end up going to places that are most mysterious. It’s the mystery that draws me.” (Dan Coyle, 47:30)
  • Embedding himself in elite cultures (e.g., Russian tennis, the Cleveland Guardians, the Spurs) to go beyond superficial understanding.

10. Final Thought – “The Champagne Question” & What Really Matters

• Looking Forward:
  • If you’re celebrating a year from now, what’s happened? For Dan, it’s experiencing joy and connection, merging new and old communities, especially family.
    • Quote: “New relationships, but also connected to old, that to me, is very super appealing.” (Dan Coyle, 52:14)
• What Are You Optimizing For?
  • Community, profound experiences, relationships—these trump efficiency and scale.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “In the journey of craft, it always involves getting simpler. Period. Right. And is there an end to that? I know that I could definitely be simpler because simple is not easy.” (Dan Coyle, 04:00)
• “Answers stop conversations… Questions bring people together.” (Dan Coyle, 18:44)
• “If you don’t have the ability to stop and create relationships and community, all that stuff is meaningless because it’s meaningless.” (Dan Coyle, 33:09)
• “Self improvement…actually that’s not as powerful as shared improvement.” (Dan Coyle, 36:04)
• “When I’m feeling down, I go find somebody I can help.” (Craig Counsell, as recounted by Dan Coyle, 38:13)
• “Optimizing is a good word…you have to leave some space. It’s imperfect. It’s not efficient. But that’s where the value is.” (Dan Coyle, 44:47)

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Suggested Timestamps for Key Segments

• Mastering Craft & Storytelling: 02:34–09:39
• Flourishing Through Community: 10:00–12:20
• Yellow Doors & Complexity: 12:20–17:29
• Curiosity in Elite Teams: 17:29–23:51
• DNA of Great Teams: 26:23–30:48
• Chilean Miners Story: 30:55–35:13
• Lessons for Everyday Leaders: 35:13–39:00
• Rock Climbing & Yellow Doors: 39:00–41:05
• Technology vs. True Community: 41:05–46:49
• Research Approach: 46:49–51:17
• The Champagne Question / Conclusion: 51:47–54:45

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Closing Thoughts

At its heart, the episode is a passionate invitation to choose connection over isolation, curiosity over answers, and complexity over oversimplification. Flourishing—whether for individuals, families, or world-class teams—is not a solo game but a deeply communal, ever-evolving journey through the “yellow doors” that beckon from the corners of our lives. The biggest takeaway: community and curiosity are the true foundation of lasting success and meaning.

“Community is how we do that… We’re prewired for community. As dystopian as the world can feel, it’s not predetermined—there really is a possibility for a community revival.”
(Dan Coyle, 46:49)

Transcript

[Ryan Hawk]

Welcome to the Learning Leader show. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. 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 the night's featured leader. One of my favorites, Dan Coyle, New York Times best selling author who spent the last two decades studying what makes great teams great. He wrote the Talent Code, the Culture Code and now Flourish. These are books that have shaped how millions of people think about skill development, team culture and meaningful connection. He works with the Cleveland Guardians as a special advisor on culture and performance. We got together in Cleveland to record this one in person. So glad I got to spend half.

[Corey]

A day with Dan.

[Ryan Hawk]

A few things. We discussed the craft of writing and storytelling, including the advice Dan gives to his 24 year old daughter who wants to be a writer.

[Corey]

Love it.

[Ryan Hawk]

And then the Chilean miners story. You've heard me talk a little bit about this with Mike Deegan. 33 men trapped underground for 52 days who should not have survived but did and what that reveals about human resilience and group flourishing. And then I love this concept called Yellow Doors. They are about spotting opportunities to create meaningful connections and exploring new paths. Including a new story that Dan tells about rock climbing. I think you'll find it useful. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Dan Coyle. This episode is brought to you by my friends at Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to providing amazing people to to their clients and taking great care of them. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people or transform your business through talent or technical services. Insight Global can get you the people you need and help you develop them to reach their full potential. Developing your people can be tough, but having productive employees can be magic. Visit insightglobal.com learningleader that's insight global.com to learn more.

[Corey]

Who are you reading lately that like you're loving?

[Dan Coyle]

You know this guy and it's more in the writing area but George Saunders bump into his stuff at all?

[Corey]

I've heard that, yeah. What's something he's written that you really like?

[Dan Coyle]

It's called A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. He teaches a class on writing, but it's really kind of about life.

[Corey]

What's that book? A Swim.

[Dan Coyle]

It's a terrible title. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.

[Corey]

And that's a. Nonfiction.

[Dan Coyle]

Nonfiction. It's based on a class he teaches on Russian short stories. So it's super abstract.

[Corey]

Oh my God.

[Dan Coyle]

I'm trying to think of something that's more in your. In your world or our world.

[Corey]

Are you. So you're studying writing?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Corey]

Is that, like, your favorite thing?

[Dan Coyle]

I'm always looking to deepen that skill set. Yeah. Look at that.

[Corey]

Dude.

[Dan Coyle]

That is Clapper. This is Elite. I had no idea. Clapper. Fucking hell. It's not the $10,000 cameras.

[Corey]

It's the $15 slate from.

[Dan Coyle]

You clapped it. You clapped it.

[Corey]

It works.

[Dan Coyle]

It's got the colors on it. Hey, I love it.

[Corey]

You're not alone.

[Ryan Hawk]

Wow.

[Corey]

So you still feel like you're. I have an official start, but I'm too curious here.

[Ryan Hawk]

Oh, yeah, you're still.

[Corey]

You're still deep into learning about being a better 100%, really.

[Dan Coyle]

100?

[Corey]

What do you mean?

[Dan Coyle]

Like, there are people that, you know sort of mountaintop of craft, right? Like, you work your way up it, you learn, you relearn. You have the strange experience of reading something that you wrote and thinking, oh, hey, that's actually pretty good.

[Corey]

Who wrote that?

[Dan Coyle]

You know, your own stuff. Your own stuff. And you also see how you've decomplicated things over the years. Like, I think in the journey of craft always involves getting simpler, Period. Right. And is there an end to that? I know that I could definitely be simpler because simple is not easy. Right. And I think the great ones are always. They've got their craft to where it is, where there's a simplicity to it. And I feel. I feel hungry for more of that. Like, especially in this world we live in where we're all trying to communicate, and there's so much clutter and noise, and it's easy to want to compete with that and bring a lot of energy and speed to your communications. And yet the stuff that really resonates is quieter for me and is simpler. And he. George Saunders, this writer we're talking about, embodies that, and he really, deeply has a beautiful explanation for how he does what he does. So it's just. It's like reading. It happens to be about writing, but it sort of could be about archery or chess or baseball.

[Corey]

What about, like, how does climbing play a role with any of that? Or does it.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, I think it does. There is.

[Corey]

Or is that just a challenge? Like, hard. Do the hard thing with other people, develop relationships. Doing hard things. I mean, that's some culture code stuff, right? Like, doing hard things together with other people.

[Dan Coyle]

Completely suffering, for instance, like, suffering together. How powerful that is. Untangling things together, literally and figuratively, is. Is super powerful and. And Being vulnerable is super powerful for me. If there, if it is, we're talking about this mountaintop of craft. With climbing, I'm at the very, very, very bottom. Like, how do I tie that knot? And with writing, I'm somewhere in the middle. So it's fun to feel, to have a couple of those zones in your life where you're a beginner again. I mean, it's kind of freeing, liberating, but it also develops empathy because there's some stuff that is really, really. It looks very simple, but it's not. And so it gives you empathy for, for people that are learning.

[Corey]

You said one of your daughters wants to be a writer, but she's fiction writer. Right. Does she come to you and say, dad, how do I do what you did? In a little bit different way, but. Or is she. Is she old enough now where she's mature to say, my dad's actually really, really good and legit and great? Because, you know, teenage years, you're kind of. They're going to make fun of you and all that stuff.

[Ryan Hawk]

How was that?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, no, interesting. We've always had kind of a, I think a good relationship. I've. I've learned from her a lot, actually. Yeah, she's reads really deeply. She's interested in kind of Greek myths and writing fiction off of that. And so that was a total education for me. So it was a kind of a two way dialogue. She doesn't ask me my opinion very much, which is kind of a relief. I don't really know how she does what she does, but it's been kind of fun. I've had to lean on her sometimes and she leans on me sometimes.

[Corey]

But the craft of storytelling is you're one of the best in the world at that element. And then weaving the stories together to help other people. I would say to simplify that as much as I could.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah.

[Corey]

What about that part? This craft of storytelling?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, I've. I've been. I've edited some of her stuff and I've tried to. There was a. There's a thing in Ohio that's kind of strange. It should be everywhere. It's called power of the pen. It's where you take writing and you turn it into like a high school varsity sport.

[Corey]

You've heard of this, Corey? Okay.

[Dan Coyle]

Right. It's the thing.

[Corey]

Oh, wow.

[Dan Coyle]

That's the thing. And the way it works is you have a little team from a different schools and they're all middle school kids, I think, and you all go to a gym and you get a prompt, 20 minutes, go. And then there are judges that write all the essay, all the short stories. They're like, the prompt is a tree in spring. Go. Right, go. A prompt is, my dog is sick. Go. And everybody writes a story based on that prompt. And then those stories are judged and you write three of them in a day. And then the winners get trophies. And it's just this crazy fun thing. Well, I happened to coach the middle school team when my daughter Zoe was there. And then Zoe went on to become the coach of the team when she got older, so. And she was a way better coach than I was because she was closer. She was more of a peer of the kids. And storytelling is a craft because there always is. There's some desire, there's some obstacle, and there's some transformation in every good story, right? There's like, I wanna do. I wanna get somewhere. There's this thing standing my way. And then there's some transformation on that journey. It's like everything, like teaching it teaches you. And so being the coach there really helped me. Being the coach there really helped Zoe. And then Zoe ended up coaching me and I ended up coaching Zoe a little bit. So it was never this like, transmit, let me teach all my wisdom to my daughter. It was much more of a rich two way dialogue that I think ended up helping both of us a little bit.

[Corey]

Man, I love hearing stories like that. I'm gonna pepper you forever about your. Since you're a little bit ahead of me. And so I'm always gonna be like, oh, this is. Seems like you figured some things out in this really hard game of being a dad with daughters. And it's the most important thing in the world and the coolest thing in the world. Talk about suffering together. That's why I love skiing together. I don't. Maybe I'm. Maybe it's just so.

[Ryan Hawk]

I don't know how you feel about.

[Corey]

This, but like this idea of skiing with your kids and seeing them fall and then they got to get themselves back up and then keep going, and then by the end of the day to see the smile on their face and they've kind of conquered a hard thing and you did it together and you got in the hot tub together afterwards. Like, does it get better than that perfect day? Does it get better?

[Dan Coyle]

It does not.

[Corey]

I don't know if it does with your kids and your wife. Like, I don't know if it gets any better than that.

[Dan Coyle]

No, no, it's a perfect day and. And they have the. The perfect amount of like freedom and togetherness. It' front is like freedom and then togetherness. Freedom and then togetherness. There's such a great pulse in that. It is like the pulse of family.

[Corey]

It's so good. Okay, Flourish.

[Dan Coyle]

Speak.

[Corey]

So it was so cool to get this book from your team. I appreciate you sending it to me. And they sent me the PDF too. So I was devouring it and taking so many notes. I got to start at actually the very beginning. Yeah, we were just talking about Jenny.

[Dan Coyle]

Right.

[Corey]

You guys are now empty nesters. You're still figuring it out, but you dedicate it to her. And just as for Jenny, like a simplicity in that.

[Dan Coyle]

Yep.

[Corey]

How does she help you? Dan Coyle, Flourish.

[Dan Coyle]

Oh my God. In every possible way. There's not a book deep enough or long enough to tell that story. But yeah, it being, you know, one of the lessons of getting older. And I, I just turned 60, so it's like, this is, like, this is like.

[Corey]

That's hard to believe.

[Dan Coyle]

It is.

[Corey]

It's a hard.

[Dan Coyle]

You think you're looking at you.

[Corey]

It's hard to believe.

[Ryan Hawk]

I'm just saying you look great.

[Dan Coyle]

No, it's one of the things is like, I think growing up, I always had the idea of kind of individual success, individual greatness. It's like we were fed all these stories about kind of heroic journeys of improvement and. And a lot of the information we get is how we can get better as individuals. And over and over again, I keep seeing when you scratch one of those individual stories, what is revealed as a community of people. And it's a community of people who support in ways that they don't even realize they're supporting. But we're all deeply enmeshed in these kind of ecosystems. And so Jenny is like the ecosystem for me to be able to do what I do. Because what I do, similar to, I think a lot of careers, it's like, it doesn't actually make that much sense. Going from writing project to writing project, hoping stuff works out, exploring some of those explorations work out, some of them don't. It ain't efficient. It ain't like getting on the train and going to your work and then coming back and getting on the train and coming home at 5 o' clock every day. It's not that. It's. I think I need to go to Russia, you know, it's. I think I need to spend some time digging into this.

[Corey]

It's.

[Dan Coyle]

It's not knowing where the next check is going to come from. It's, you know, hoping that that Works out. And so she's been, you know, more than a partner during all that time and being an incredible teammate, incredible support. So all my books are dedicated to her, with the exception of one. I don't have to think long about who to dedicate books to.

[Corey]

That's cool, man. I love stories like that. And when you look at people who have sustained excellence over time, it seems like that's one of the commonalities is either their who in general or, in your case, that plus this rock of a support system at home that you love unconditionally and have built a life with. The other thing you write about is yellow doors. Yeah, I loved reading more about yellow doors. Can you explain this idea of what yellow doors are and how you're trying to make the most of them?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah. No, I mean, most of us go through our lives. This is. By the way, it's an idea from a Columbia University psychologist named Lisa Miller. And what she points out is that most of us go through our lives looking for the green doors that are open. Clear. Go. Let's go. Not to be too McConaughey. I don't know how he would even say his own name. Green lights.

[Corey]

Good book, especially. It's amazing audiobooks. Really good.

[Dan Coyle]

Oh, I'll bet it is.

[Corey]

Yeah. He's a voice actor. I mean, it's great. Yeah.

[Dan Coyle]

Most of us go through life looking for the green doors that are open and the red doors that are closed. Like, that's clearly a path forward for me. That's clearly a path I should not go. And there's a lot of those in life. Right. But the idea of yellow doors is that there's another kind of door, right, that's kind of out of the corner of your eye. It might be something that makes you uncomfortable. It might be something that's brand new, but that's where life actually happens. One of the reasons that that's true is that, you know, we tend to think and perceive things in straight lines. We tend to sort of go from A to B to C to D and sort of think of life as this big. I don't know, like a big game, right? A big. A big game that has rules. And you should analyze, follow the rules, make good decisions. But in fact, that's like a misperception. I think I've come to believe that that is absolutely wrong. Life is actually not a game. Games are machines. Life is. There are elements of life that are like a game. Parts of it are. But deep, deep down, it ain't a game. It Ain't it is something. It is. It is a living thing. It's complex. And complex things don't have straight lines. They've got, like, little doorways and pathways, and it's like this jungle trail that keeps shifting and moving and you're moving along with it. There's some weird science connected to this that is basically says it's about complexity, right? All of life's problems. There are two kinds of problems in life. Some are complicated and some are complex. And we typically use those two words, like, interchangeably. Right? They're not like, complex is really different than complicated. And I found this to be really, really useful. Complicated things come together the same way every time. A goes to B goes to C. There's cause and effect. It's unchangeable. Like, I could. If I told you to build a Ford Mustang and gave you all the information and all the materials and a set of instructions that was accurate and you followed those instructions, you would have a Ford Mustang every time, right? That's complicated. You have to analyze. It takes expertise, but it's complicated. Complex are problems where when you involve yourself in them, they change. So the difference is, is this more like building a Ford Mustang or is this more like raising a teenager? There's no script I can give you, as we know. There is no set of instructions. There's no A to B to C to D. It ain't complicated. It's freaking complex. Which means everything I do changes the relationship, right? Complex things live in relationship. And so that's where the yellow door idea really resonates for me. Because it's like, when you think of your life as complicated, you think, oh, what's the next good move? I just need to make one good move. It's straight lines. I'll be able to figure it out. I need to analyze it more. I need to think about it more. Complexity is like, wait a minute. There's like something opening up over here. Let me check that out. Like, that seems interesting. Let me probe. And to go back to grounded in the science, if you've got a complicated problem, you need to analyze. Find out where are you in that list of instructions? Like, get the next best instruction. Find the expert, Follow. Follow the guide. But if you're in a complex problem, information is not helpful. If you're in a complex problem, you gotta probe. Like, you gotta test out. Take a step into that yellow door and be like, huh, that sucked. I'm going to turn around. Or, whoa, that's kind of cool. I'm going to keep Going and see what the next step is. And so what I see in highly kind of thriving people, especially in people that I studied for this book, was this willingness to kind of let go of analysis, kind of let go of information and let their experience guide them. Say, let's try that. It seems kind of stupid. I can make all kinds of logical reasons why it won't work, but I'm going to let go of logic for just a second, and I'm going to actually probe and see what happens. I'm going to actually live it, and then I'll get some information by doing that, right? So they're living their way forward into these questions, into these yellow doors. Like you're living into the question. That's the way. There was a poet a long time ago, Rilke, the poet. Somebody asked him. He got older. They asked him. It was a young letters to a young poet. So somebody wrote him, how do I live my life? And he wrote back, and Rilke said, live the question. That's how you should live your life. Live into the question. And that's what I kept seeing in these flourishing groups that I've been spending the last five years visiting. Like, they're not about the answers. And we live in this day, in this age where answers are as cheap as tap water, right? Like, AI will give you the answers. Sure, we have the answers, but do we have the questions? And are we noticing the questions that are just in the corner of our eye? And are we able to live into those questions in ways that help us to grow?

[Corey]

Like, that's what flourishing is, this idea of being. I found you since I don't even know how many years we've been talking now, from that first meeting, dinner, breakfast, all of them, when you asked me to come up and hang out. At the time, I think they were still the Cleveland Indians. Chris Antonetti, Jay Hennessy, you. There are some others in the room, and I was just one. I thought, this is the coolest thing, just to be in this room. President of a baseball team who's crushed it. You, a guy who I've idolized as a writer, Josh Gibson, another brilliant guy. And the level of curiosity just blew my mind because those are the guys who should be telling me everything. I showed up trying to learn and learn and all that Chris and you and everybody in the room was doing, was peppering me. I couldn't believe guys that had this stature and this level of excellence that they have sustained, Sustained over time, and yet they were as curious as anybody I've ever Met.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah.

[Corey]

I just love to hear you kind of riff on the level of curiosity amongst the leadership with the Cleveland Guardians, the guys that you are an intern for. I mean, just to hear more like.

[Dan Coyle]

And how.

[Corey]

How cool it is to be in.

[Ryan Hawk]

An environment like that.

[Dan Coyle]

It is. It's totally energizing. Right? Like. Like the.

[Corey]

I feel like that's a part of this too, though. Like, it's kind of like that, you.

[Ryan Hawk]

Know, like a curiosity about life.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, I know, I know. Well, I mean, if we really, you know, we can. We can dig into the Guardians some more because they, for me, they really do embody that curiosity. And it's really easy, especially in sports, especially in high performance stuff, to focus on those answers. The thing that I like about hanging out with them is that they raise everybody's level. You know, answers, stop conversations. And by stopping conversations, they kind of. They don't fuel relationships, they don't. Questions, bring people together. Right. And the ability to really, especially as you move up in the world, as you get older, as you have a higher status, it becomes increasingly tempting if you have the model of leadership that a leader is the pilot of the boat and the person who's flipping the levers and has the answers. And that's how I grew up thinking of leaders.

[Corey]

Sure, right.

[Dan Coyle]

They were the ones with the answers. It becomes tempting to become that and all the other signals you get in the organization reinforce that. So it takes a really special person, I think, to realize, and a really different model for what a business is, for what a high performance organization is. You know, we typically think of them as kind of machines. You know, Indiana football last night looked like a freaking machine. Right. They win the national championship. We think of the Seals as a machine. We think of Pixar as a machine. But actually, when you get close to those organizations, they're not functioning like machines. Machines are controlled from the outside and they're very predictable and they produce a predictable result. That's why they're machines. Right. But what we're having here is like more of an enlivening, an animating of energy that's hidden those questions. Why are they powerful? Because they bring out people's energy and curiosity. Why is curiosity so powerful? Because it creates these explorations and leaders who are good at lobbing that question in and then closing their mouth. It's the most powerful skill. Because it's not a machine. Because these organizations are actually more like these energy channels that are exploring stuff. They're more like rivers. It's like a river. How do you make a river flow well, you give it a horizon to flow toward. Like, where are we going? You set up some riverbanks is where we're not going to go. We're not going to go to either side of this. But inside this space, I want to create energy and agency. And questions do that. And it's a super interesting skill too, because, you know, in the book I write a little bit about Peter Block, who's like one of the best ever at answering, at asking these. These questions and exploring these questions. And the questions aren't that work in these situations, whether it's at the Guardians or somewhere else. They're not questions that are kind of fact based. They're more like deep questions, like what makes a great player? What happens in championship locker rooms. There are questions that are impossible to simply answer. So what they do is they kind of spark more exploration. And in that exploration, something bubbles up usually. And the funny thing about those conversations that I've had in the Guardians a million times is like, you'll be in a meeting, somebody will put in a question like, how do great hitters recognize pitches, whatever it might be? And this conversation will happen and some ideas will bubble up, and later on, no one will know where those ideas came from. It wasn't exactly you, it wasn't exactly me. We were building on ideas. You threw an idea and I built on it. Somebody else built on it. Somebody else built on it. And all of a sudden you walk out with not only energy, but agency and a fresh idea. And so it cracks me up, actually, to go. You still can go to some places and they're still in that old model of leadership where it's like, I'm the answer man. I'm the answer woman. I will speak first, I will speak last. I will not invite conversation. And my role is to deliver the truth. And I can see how that would have worked. Like that would have worked on Mad Men. That would have worked in the 50s, 60s and 70s when we didn't have so many answers around, where we didn't have the challenging, changing landscape that we're in. But now the landscape's freaking moving. And the idea that one guy can have all the answers is actually kind of insane. Yeah, I think that doesn't work. So how do we create those conversations?

[Ryan Hawk]

Team dialogue.

[Corey]

I think I learned this, like Dialogos. Was this from Jay and you probably. Is it Peter Senj, how do you say his last? So the fifth discipline. I've used this a lot that I learned, I believe was from you And Jay, when I was in that meeting about this, the power of. I want to get in like the DNA of excellent teams because this is something you're good at to go along with this is this team coming together, doing exactly what you said. But you can't do it if you're not open minded, if you're not curious or not willing to ask questions. Again, you talk about asking good questions and maybe it's context dependent, but I am curious to learn from you. What are some of like, the best questions to ask when you're in a team environment and you're trying to figure things out? You got complex or issues happening. What are some of your favorite questions to ask in those situations?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, that's a great question. I think we're doing it, dude. I think what's energizing you right now is a really good question.

[Corey]

Didn't you ask me that right before we started recording?

[Dan Coyle]

I think I did. I only got one question.

[Corey]

I loved it.

[Dan Coyle]

That's the one.

[Corey]

Well, I mean, it led to like a 10 minute monologue, but yeah, kind of did. Yeah.

[Dan Coyle]

Right, right.

[Corey]

It's great, you know.

[Dan Coyle]

And what else is a really good question? I think people tend to, you know, there's usually like something underneath the surface. Asking the same question again is a really good question because sometimes the first time doesn't go, what do really curious about right now? Is a good one. And there's always the double header, which is like, what do you want to do more of? I think that's a really good question. Like, because what we're talking about here is like, where your energy is going and where do you. Where do you see you're going really well. What do you want more of? I want more of this, I want more of that. And what do you want to do differently? Is another good question. Like, what do you want to do differently? Because I'm not. You're trying to create space here, which is such a groovy phrase. Like, we're going to create space right now. But it kind of captures what it is, which is like, I want to make you feel like I'm not interrogating you. Yeah, that, like, I'm not judging you. If I say, like, what are you doing that you think's going poorly?

[Corey]

It's.

[Dan Coyle]

Is that. That's a crappy question. But what do you want to do differently? Is. Is not a bad one. It creates space for you to go, yeah, here's what I want to do differently. Yeah, those are all good. And then other questions kind of about the future, I think are really liberating and good. And all these questions paint a picture for me. Describe for me, five years from now, things go great. Give me an average Tuesday. What do you do on that day? You're probably obviously skiing with your daughters.

[Corey]

That would be one of them.

[Dan Coyle]

My family's right alongside you. But something in all of those, what you're, I think, trying to do is get people out of kind of their narrow bore attention and let go a little bit, surrender a little bit and open up and point out things that are maybe in the corner of their eye.

[Corey]

Yeah. So, Dan, I was recently asked to give two talks to the same company. One was just the salespeople and they asked me to talk about excellence and habits and routines and rituals of high performance. Right. Stuff I learned about on the show. The second was with the entire company and they said, we want you to title it. I don't usually do this. I'm sure you don't either, where they tell you what they want you to talk about. Yeah, they say it needs to be titled the DNA of Great Teams.

[Dan Coyle]

Interesting.

[Corey]

And I said, initially, I said, no.

[Dan Coyle]

I don't know if I have that.

[Corey]

Talk in me or whatever. And then I thought, well, it might be kind of a.

[Dan Coyle]

It's kind of a cool topic.

[Corey]

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so I did that a couple like a month ago now. And I would be curious if you were asked to give a talk titled the DNA of Great Teams. What are some of the. I don't. You don't need to give the talk right now, but what are some of the bullet points that would immediately start popping up in your mind of, oh, this is. Yeah, this great team is great. I mean, you're maybe the foremost guy to ask this question to.

[Dan Coyle]

So no pressure, huh? Yeah.

[Corey]

Right? Yeah. So this better be good.

[Dan Coyle]

Freaking great.

[Corey]

Expect perfection.

[Dan Coyle]

Oh, yeah, no, it's good. You know, part of my mind there goes right to kind of these core things of. Of deep, deep belonging sort of sacrifice, but I'll get a little notch. So you got the big principles there that I think are true in every great team. But I'll go like, since Indiana football is fresh in our minds after seeing that, there is something, you know, if we notch a little bit deeper, it's like peer leaders who sacrifice for the team. For me is like. Is like really big seeing that.

[Corey]

You see Mendoza got smoked.

[Dan Coyle]

Smoked.

[Corey]

I mean, he was battered and he just kept going, going. That guy, he was getting hammered and.

[Dan Coyle]

He didn't complain and interview talks about his Teammates, I mean. Yeah. How do you respond? And that. And so that leads to the second one, which is like that moment of, of terrible adversity. What is the instinct? Are we turning toward each other or are we turning away from each other? To me, that is like such a litmus test. You could actually see it last night. You could see the contrast between the two teams. When things went bad, they responded very differently. Right. That response is just. Is just so, so important to DNA of great teams. And I don't actually don't think the coach is that important in a way.

[Corey]

Really, with Betty.

[Dan Coyle]

No, I think, I think he obviously sets the tone and everything, but when we. And it's part of the DNA, but it's not as big a part as people think. I think great team coaches can create the conditions for that team to emerge. But the thing with the great teams have sometimes pit themselves against the coach. You know, they can sometimes see the coach as we're going to come together against this guy. The US Olympic hockey team of 1980 would be an example of that. So I would put that on there and I would also put a shout out to this. Curiosity is at the very, very, very core of it because that keeps you going and it's really hard to consistently succeed. And I think the teams that I've seen do that are ones that do not get gassed up on their own stuff, do not drink their own Kool Aid, do not believe in their success, actually in a way, sort of in a. It's not skeptical exactly, but they're not buying into it in a, like, oh, now I'm at the top of the mountain, everything's fine. They get curious about that next mountain and they get curious about each other and they get curious about the situation and they're willing to let go of stuff that. That didn't work. OKC is really good at this. The basketball team, I mean, they, they are incredibly intentional about how they evolve and how they lead. And they were here last year and I had a. A coffee with. With their coach and their shooting coach, Chip England, who's brilliant, brilliant shooting coach Mark Dagino. And they told me something that was kind of cool that I hadn't appreciated. When someone gets traded in pro sports, it's like a death. Like, this is locker room. Everybody knows each other, trade deadlines coming, somebody got traded, and then their locker's empty. It's like a gravestone. And what the coach at OKC does is on the day after somebody gets traded, he spends a minute of practice expressing his appreciation for that person who's gone. It takes like 10 seconds, 30 seconds, whatever. But it. Like, what. How simple and human is that? How powerful is that? And it really. I think what I'm seeing in these places, it's the same thing that I see in these flourishing groups that I wrote about. The word is community. Like, the thing that makes people flourish is community. It's not a bunch of individuals that are individualing together. It's like, can they connect? Can they. I mean, the way that some people would say it would be like, love your neighbor. Are they loving their neighbor and supporting their neighbor? And that. That is. That's just magical when that does happen.

[Corey]

One of the groups that was blown away reading about those Chilean miners. Oh, yeah, man.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah.

[Corey]

I didn't know and understand the full story until reading about it in your book. Tell me about how they somehow, after what seems like one of the worst things that could ever happen to you.

[Ryan Hawk]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Flourished. Yeah. Together.

[Dan Coyle]

No.

[Corey]

And survived. All of them together.

[Dan Coyle]

Incredible. I mean. Yeah. If you had to trade places with anybody in the history of the world, these guys would not be in the top list. Like, they're a couple thousand feet below the surface. Happened in 2010. Most of us remember it, I think. You know, Chilean San Jose mine, caves in. There's, you know, 100 million tons of rock on top of them. They're in a room called a refugio. And there's probably no escape. They're probably thinking, this is it. And there's a little cabinet with some tuna fish, cookies, spoiled milk. Like, not much. Not much food. 33 people down there. And for the first couple hours, it went as bad as it could have gone. Like, people are eating the food. People are running around, scrambling, yelling at each other. And then they. They sort of tire out. They circle up, and it's funny. And, you know, we all know that they survived. We all know that they. They ended up kind of creating a little civilization down there. And the original thought when they came out was like, oh, they had great leaders. They had, like, these two guys that seem to be leaders. And those leaders had a plan, and they had a strategy, and they. They did it, and they were, like, steering the ship. And it turns out that wasn't the case. What happened was that they. They sort of circled up and they stopped, and they kind of paused. They just stopped and they said, look, we're in the shit. Like, this is it. We're not getting out of here. And then the boss stepped forward. His boss. Everyone was kind of afraid of he wore a white helmet. His name was Luis Urzua. And he took off his white helmet and he said, there are no bosses and no employees. There's no bosses and no employees. We're all one here. And then there's another pause. And somebody else pointed out that there were 33 of them, which is the same age Christ was when he died. And so they saw that as being. They're mostly Catholic, saw that as being as symbolic. And from those pauses, like they weren't actually trying to do anything. But what happened in those moments is their attention shifted from this terror and this task of survival to this larger connection that they had, this relationship they had with each other and with this moment. And they started to kind of self organize at that time. Like, just, let's build a little sleeping area, let's get the food sorted. Let's figure out how much lamp battery power we have. And they started this set of rituals. Rituals. And they almost like each meal they would get out a certain flake of tuna, and they would all share it and eat it at the same time. They built small games out of little reflectors, and they would play these games with their limited light. And it didn't like. It didn't. It wasn't easy. And there was an incredible amount of shared suffering down there, but it was shared. And when they finally got contact with the surface, one of the things that they did that kind of blew everybody away was they sung the Chilean national anthem together. So they're down there, no food, very little supplies, dark infection, it's super hot. And they end up kind of creating this little model civilization that functioned incredibly well for the situation that they were in. And what let them do that was not information. It wasn't analysis. It was letting go. It was having this moment of meaning, of making meaning and creating presence. I saw that pattern in all the places that I visited. They were able to create meaning because you can have all the information, you can have all the success, you can have all the productivity. But if you don't have the ability to, like, stop and create relationships and create community, all that stuff is. We say it's meaningless because it's meaningless. And community is how we do that. And so they were just a beautiful example of, like, all right, they don't have anything. How did they create community? Well, they did it by stopping and looking to something bigger than themselves. Stopping and looking. And that moment of stopping and looking is something that I saw in all the groups that I visited. They had the ability, in all the busyness of this world to be like, wait a minute, stop. What are we really about? What matters here? What is our community? Why are we here? What is bigger than us that we're connected to right now? And they grounded themselves in those moments over and over and over again. And that's what creates growth and that's what creates connection. That's what creates community.

[Corey]

So that's an extreme story. What about for the person who has a pretty good life and they're a mid level VP ISH leader at a Fortune 100 company trying to hit an aggressive goal, hire. Well, fire when needed, you know, different than being stuck way down there with 30 sometimes. Yeah. Well, yeah. What would you take from that experience and all of these stories? Flourishing groups and people.

[Dan Coyle]

Right.

[Corey]

That could help the person who doesn't have it terrible. In fact, they have it pretty good, right? Maybe not excellent or great, but they're doing fine. What could they learn from those guys, the Chilean miners, to implement into either their place of work or their life at home to flourish, to do really, really well from a team perspective, from a family perspective and as individuals.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah. I think the thing though, there's a lot of lessons to learn and one of them is getting smart. Smarts will only get you so far is kind of one big one. To really have this sense of fulfillment. We only flourish. I think there's a myth in our culture right now that individuals can flourish. You think of, oh, that person. You see them as a single person, as an individual and you hear about their success and the appearance by all appearances like that individual is flourishing, but underneath them, invisibly, they're part of a larger community. Flourishing is only. We only become our best through other people. So we have this pronoun problem, basically I me, when actually it's we and us, right? Self improvement. We talk about self improvement. Actually that's not as powerful as shared improvement. Right. So this idea that we're actually pre wired to flourish through community. Pre wired. And one way to access that, I think is to think about times in your life, moments in your life when you have felt the most alive, the most connected, the most growing that have challenged you and that have made you who you are. I'm going to say those moments didn't happen when you were by yourself in a sauna, when you were training alone. Those were relationships. Those were moments when you're in community. Those are moments when community was lighting you up in some new way and challenging you to grow and creating conditions where you could grow. So the challenge to somebody In a Fortune 100 is a mid level is who's your community? How are you nurturing it? Life looks like a game every day. Guess what? Sorry, it's not a game, it's a garden. And long term, growing the garden of your career is going to benefit you. It's in your self interest way more than playing the game of your career. Growing the garden of your career. So the question to ask every day is like, who's in my garden? Who can I learn from? What relationship do I need to feed and nurture? And who can I feed? Who can I help? We had Craig Counsel in to interview for the guardians manager position a few years ago and somebody asked him what he did when he was feeling down. Like hard job, lonely job, like a lot of jobs talk about sort of the loneliness of the manager. His answer was, I go find somebody I can help. Go find a rookie, I can help. Go find a clubhouse person I can help. I that's my cure. It's like that really stayed with me because it's his problem, right. You'd think he'd want to sort of self gratify and I need to fix myself. It's like, no, it's community comes down to like serve thy neighbor. It comes down to helping other people and that instinct which is kind of the opposite of what we really want to do in some ways. Right. It's hard to do that. That freaking hard to get out of your own head. But that instinct to flip it and say, wait, who can I go help? Is a really powerful question. Talk about powerful questions.

[Corey]

It's like when Jeff asked you to go rock climbing.

[Dan Coyle]

Oh yeah.

[Corey]

It's kind of a yellow door, isn't it? Because initially, from what I read, at least you're thinking, I don't, I don't think I want to do that.

[Dan Coyle]

No, no.

[Corey]

But, but now since you said yes to that invitation, how has it changed your life?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, no, it's given me this whole new, whole new community. Really? Yeah, really. You know, and yeah, I didn't want to go indoor rock climbing. That is a stupid sport. Like, let's be frank, it is a. You put on these stupid shoes and you go some indoor thing with painful grips and chalk and all these bags and this stupid harness that I put on backwards when I first put it on and it just, you feel like an idiot. But my friend who had, you know, he was looking to create some new friends and friendships, he recently been through some changes in his personal life and I wanted to show up for him. Right. And so I ended up getting involved in this and now five, six years later, here we are doing trips and playing music and going skiing and it's this whole new group, a whole new community of friends. So that yellow door and reaching out, I mean through that yellow door is.

[Corey]

Really what has that changed for you? Because I'm with you. There are days you probably have introverted tendencies as a writer. I definitely do. Especially if you go on stage. You need to recharge and it's usually by yourself. But that Craig counsel, which I'm going to borrow forever now too, of you know what, when I'm feeling down or when something happens like let's say your daughter gets temporarily hurt on the soccer field, like it's the worst feeling in the world. What makes that better? Having a conversation with you, trying to help somebody else, trying to do something I think is going to make a positive dent in the world. Help someone one on one. It seems obvious, but it's almost harder now than ever because we have devices, these incredible computers that we all carry in our pockets. And if we can take it out and look at it forever and always have an unlimited supply of things to look at. But what are you doing when you're doing that? You're completely by yourself.

[Dan Coyle]

Yes.

[Corey]

In fact, it's worse because you might be watching videos or pictures of people who are together and you're not.

[Dan Coyle]

I know.

[Corey]

You know what I mean? So how does that play a role into this community and flourishing?

[Dan Coyle]

Oh my God. I mean, I sort of think of these places I visited as being the cure for this kind of AI dystopia that we are. We're moving toward. I mean, we're clearly moving toward that. And there's a lot of structures in our society that really want to divide our attention and keep us individualized and keep us apart from community or provide a fake artificial friend for us to talk to, which is absolutely hilarious and dark and wrong. But the idea that the cure is we're pre wired for this stuff. There are these huge meta studies that show are you happier when you get a gift or give a gift? Guess what, you're happier when you give one. We all know that already. We're increasingly learning. It feels like there is this sort of humanist revival. Maybe I'm gassed up on my own, on my own research, but in visiting these places, these communities that have kind of come back to life, these businesses like Zingerman's Deli, for example, that have absolutely thrived by not scaling like we think of scaling as being this oh, that's good to do. Oh, always good to do. They had an offer. This is this little deli in Ann Arbor that I write about. They were very successful, you know, just the best Ruben, you've ever had. And a lot of your listeners may have even been there. It's very, it's very famous. It started in 1982. They've grown and grown and grown. And at one point, Walt Disney came up to them and part of their values is to be in Ann Arbor. That's where they are. That's where they do their business. And Walt Disney came up to them with a $50 million offer to say, we want you in our park. Like, you guys are great deli. We want you in our park. And for most businesses, that's a no brainer. Like, we're going to do it. And for Zingerman's, it took like 20 minutes. They're like, nope, we're not interested. If you ever come to Ann Arbor, if you ever have a Walt Disney World in Ann Arbor, we will be in it. But short of that, this is where we get our meaning. This is where we get our purpose. This is the ground in which we grow our roots. And they have got this community of businesses there. There's a creamery, there's a travel business, there's a wedding planning business, there's a Korean barbecue. There's all these connected business, this family of businesses that is deep in Ann Arbor and has all kinds of deep connections with that community. So not to say every business has to follow that model, but there are models for creating those kinds of relationships that can actually lead to a much deeper sense of thriving than simply the present model we're given where it's like, go, go, go, go, go. And be narrow and scale.

[Corey]

And I like the question too. What do you. James Clear has said this. I had dinner with him recently and he said, what are you optimizing for? He asked that all the time. And, and Corey and I were talking about this before you got here. And I said, I'm optimizing for this. Oh yeah, for amazing experiences with great, great high character people who've put a positive dent in the world and being with them. Yeah, we had this scheduled on Zoom, I remember. And I emailed, like, what, the day before, or maybe it was the day of you and their team and said, wait a second, Dan might be in Cleveland. I'm just gonna go up there and see him. Or Clark Lee's down in Nashville, I'm gonna go see him. Or will go there. Is down there, too. And to me, like, this is the community building that is hard to do. You can do it a little bit on zoom. Like, you can still feel some of it, but there's nothing like meeting you down in the lobby, hanging out for a little bit, talking. I think that brings me so much joy.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Like, this flourishing is being with people, being together, connecting, developing friendships and relationships. That's what I'm optimizing for. And you hope, you know, you got to make money.

[Ryan Hawk]

Right.

[Corey]

I got a family. We all have to do that.

[Ryan Hawk]

But that's what I feel like.

[Corey]

Is there anything better than optimizing for those big relationships that can be transformative over the course of your life? To me, that's. That's been the number one thing that I'm shooting for.

[Dan Coyle]

I love it. I love it. It's so good. And optimizing is a. Is kind of a good word because it kind of implies too, that you have to leave some space. It's not. It's imperfect. Right, Right.

[Corey]

It's definitely not efficient.

[Dan Coyle]

Aiming for it. Yeah. It's not efficient. Like, you had. You had a better way to spend. You had a more efficient way to spend your morning.

[Corey]

Sure.

[Dan Coyle]

Driving. And I had a. I probably do, too.

[Corey]

Sure.

[Dan Coyle]

That's not where the, you know, the value is not evenly distributed here. Like, there's. You're aiming. And that's the thing the flourishing groups have. They're kind of. It's about moments. It's not measurable in conventional ways. Right. It's measurable in terms of value or in terms of joy or in terms of feeling connected or in terms of relationship. And like, relationship is so mysterious. All these studies show us it's the most important thing to a life. Relationships. Right. The Harvard study of longevity that we've all read about. Harvard study of adult Development. You know, what is it? It's relationships, full stop. Like, that's it. That distinguishes health and happiness more than nutrition, more than exercise, more than iq, more than genes. Like, it's relationships. And yet there's not a playbook for it. Like, what is the playbook for relationships? It involves curiosity, it involves risk. It involves looking at people who are good at it and learning from them. It involves community. You could probably make a case that communities are where we learn how to play that sport. And that's why they're so important, and that's why isolation is so, so detrimental. Like, communities teach us how to be in relationship. And that's the cool part of it. And as dystopian as the world can feel sometimes that's just part of us. We're pre wired for community. When it, when some of these places that I visited, they were inspiring because they were kind of able to flip the switch. It wasn't like a lot of work to get people to click on that way. And you know, when you walked into the guardian's office and people started asking questions, it clicks on. Like, people have that quality in them. It's not predetermined that we're going to be in this, like, tech dystopia forever. It's like there really is a possibility for kind of a community revival.

[Corey]

Well, one of your, the things I love about your style of research is you can learn a ton by using AI tools, by reading books online. You just go there, though. You go there. You, you, you kind of embed yourself with these groups of people. You've done it for multiple books now. I just love to hear your decision making of, okay, I should go see those people or I should go there, I should. What, the Navy SEALs, you know, yeah, Pixar. Can you just walk me through, like, the way you think about, okay, I should go study them or study that. I'm gonna go there. And I gotta imagine there are times when you go study somebody and whoops.

[Ryan Hawk]

Yeah, it's not a waste of time, right?

[Corey]

It's part of the deal. But like, I am curious how you think about that.

[Dan Coyle]

Totally. No, I used to think I had to go someplace where I already knew the answers. Right. I need to. I would go like, oh, it's definitely there. It's definitely. I know as I got older and as I made mistakes, I end up going to places that are most mysterious. Like, it's the mystery that draws me. For example, for the talent code, somebody had told me about a Russian tennis club in Moscow called Spartak that had produced more top 20 women players than the entire United States over a span of time. And I called a filmmaker who had been there and he just made a sound over the phone. He was just like, dude, like, you won't believe this place. And right at that moment, I'm like.

[Corey]

I'm going, I'm going.

[Dan Coyle]

I goes, no question. My curiosity gets the best of me. And it's like, I'm looking for places that are credibly unique. They stand out for some reason. And often it's a performance difference. Like, what is going on? Zingerman's Deli. I've heard about that a lot. But not every deli grows into a $90 million community of businesses, what is going on there. And then you have your first. You probe to go back to our earlier idea. Like, it's complex. So you have a call, you have a couple interactions. If that is still resonating for you, it's like a guitar string, right? Can you still hear it? Is that mystery still there? And then you go. And for the Spartak thing, it was not an easy thing to fly to Russia, and it was not an easy thing to sort of get a translator and get there. And, you know, it was dead of winter, and it was in a very strange place. It was the middle of this giant park, and it was an old, old kind of quonset hut building and a little narrow door, and you just kind of keep exploring and you keep going in, and there's an old lady in there moving in slow motion, teaching kids how to hit. And she had been teaching there for 50 years. And. And you start asking questions and, you know. Yeah, and you give enough time to where people will open up a little bit. But what I've found is that when people come up to you and say, hey, I find what you do kind of fascinating. Can you tell me about that? Most people are, like, thrilled to share that.

[Ryan Hawk]

Now.

[Dan Coyle]

There are some where they're not. The San Antonio spurs famously closed culture. They don't like people to write about them because they're a great culture. And part of what makes a great culture is they don't brag and they don't sort of spotlight their own greatness. So in approaching them, I ended up having to take sort of a side door and appeal to their curiosity about learning. R.C. buford, the GM, he's like one of the most curious people I've ever met. I sort of explained what I was doing, and that kind of opened a door because he wants to learn about the seals, he wants to learn about the guardians, he wants to learn about the U.S. olympic hockey team of 1980. So I end up sort of serving as a bridge a little bit so that those conversations can happen.

[Corey]

It's a back and forth, and then.

[Dan Coyle]

It sort of connects back to what we were talking about at the very beginning, which is like, you get up to the top of these super top learning organizations and you find the most curious people you've ever met. R.C. buford picked me up in his car at the airport, and I. I didn't stay in his house, but I spent vast amounts of like three days with him, and I think I asked him like five questions the whole time, and he asked me like 5,000 questions.

[Corey]

It was.

[Dan Coyle]

It was. I was wrung out when I left. I was like, I don't think I have anything else to talk about. And it ended up being a great, wonderful experience. I got to, you know, watch Pop work and meet Chip England and meet all these other people. So it was a great kind of embedding, but it really reinforced to me what's driving those places is that they do not think they have it figured out, and they are delighted to find where they make mistakes, and they are super curious about other people that do it well, and it's fun to be around them, man.

[Corey]

That is absolutely a commonality of the elite, the best of the best. I mean, Jay's this way as well, with the Guardians and the Seals. That this just inherent curiosity is so inspiring, man. I think that's. I know we got to go soon, but one more question that I'm curious about you personally. So I learned this question called the Champagne question from my friend Jason Gaignard. I've asked it a million times since then. It's exactly a year from now. Okay. And you and I are popping bottles. We're celebrating.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah.

[Corey]

What are we celebrating?

[Dan Coyle]

Ooh, that's really good. That's really good. We just arrived at the ski resort with our nine combined girls.

[Corey]

Let's go.

[Dan Coyle]

Because what? You've got five, I've got four. We have nine girls.

[Corey]

Just a whole football team of girls.

[Dan Coyle]

We just got there, right? We just got there. Okay. And we're about to spend like.

[Corey]

Like, can you hang on the blues with me, though? Like, you could see backwards, maybe, or just make it harder.

[Dan Coyle]

Absolutely. No. That kind of stuff where, like, the something new, new relationships, but also connected to old, that, to me, is very super appealing. And I think you've got this community that you've built, and to a certain extent, you know, I think we all do. And seeing those communities kind of meld and merge and grow is exciting.

[Corey]

I love it, man. The book Flourish. The Art of Building Meaning, Joy and Fulfillment. How fun was it to write this thing?

[Dan Coyle]

Super fun. And I'm still learning about it, too.

[Corey]

Like, is there going to be a part two?

[Dan Coyle]

We're going to change. Well, we're going to. What I'm realizing we'll try this out, but we're going to shift the subtitle on the book, actually, right now.

[Corey]

This is wrong.

[Dan Coyle]

It's. We're going to shift it at some point. It may be with the paperback or maybe in a little bit, but we've got to sell the copies we have now. With this subtitle. But what we've realized in these conversations is that this is actually about the transformative power of creating community. That's what the book's about. And that gives you fulfillment, that gives you joy, that gives you meaning. But that's what people are craving right now, I think. And that is what I'm craving right now. And that's. That's what the. Each story in the book is about, the power of creating community. And that's what's exciting. So all those things will be true. Both those subtitles will be true. But we're kind of real. It's funny. I mean, you. A book is kind of an exploration into the world, and there's the book you write, and then there's. You get to see what people respond to, and you get to see where the conversation is going to go. And so that's been really thrilling to go, like, wait a minute. This is about something that I wasn't quite appreciating a year ago, and now I really see that clearly. Yeah.

[Corey]

I mean, do you even think about the next thing? Are you just all in on this? Because I know some authors are already working on the next thing before this one comes out, and other ones are, I'm going to go on in this for years. Like, how does that work for you?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, I'm kind of. I'm kind of in between those two. And on the one hand, like, it is. It is really fun to kind of see this land, see people connect to it, see it resonate, see what. What emerges from it. And in a larger way, I've been doing that. You know, the talent code is about what's making that individual so cool. Culture code's about what's making those groups perform so well. And now it's like, what's making these communities so thriving? Like, what is going on in that group? What is that joy coming from? So each one has kind of led to the next. So what's the next one? Beyond the grave? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it is. But life is really big and deep, so we'll see where it goes. But it has a way of leading to the next next thing.

[Corey]

I appreciate you, man, and thank you for taking so much time off air listening to me ask you stupid questions about everything and anything and writing and sports and everything. Yeah. It's funny, your name comes up all the time in a lot of the work we do when it comes to, like, great teams and culture code type stuff. Talent code, all of it. Now I know this will, this will is going to inject this way into everything we do. So I'm super grateful for me. Thank you, man.

[Dan Coyle]

Thank you for what you do.

[Corey]

Appreciate it, man.

[Ryan Hawk]

It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note. Ryan learningleader.com Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Dan Coyle. A few takeaways from my notes. Find your yellow doors, those opportunities you glimpse out of the corner of your eye. The conversations that could go deeper, the friendships that could be closer to the projects that might scare you a little bit. Instead of walking past them or saying, nah, I kind of feel like being by myself. Try to go out and create some community, say yes, you never know what could happen. And then create presence conditions. The ski trips, the long drives, the shared meals, no phones, schedule them. This is how connection happens, whether it's with your family, your kids or with your people at work. And I love the story from Craig Counsel, what he talked about when he said, how do you bounce back when things are going rough, you're having a bad day, and he just said simply, I try to go help somebody, right?

[Corey]

So good, so good.

[Ryan Hawk]

And then practice curiosity like a superpower. I experienced this firsthand with Dan, Jay Hennessy, Josh Gibson, their team president, Chris Antonetti at the Guardians. I walk up in their office kind of intimidated, expecting to pepper them with tons of questions to learn from them. And that was the opposite of what happened. They just kept asking me question after question, wanting to learn. And what it taught me is that those leaders who sustain excellence are just so curious and a desire to learn, improve and get better. And Dan has seen the same things with all of the excellent leaders from teams that he has studied. Ask better questions, listen, actually listen, ask follow up questions and strive to learn more. Curiosity is also the ultimate way to show love. 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 Dan Coyle. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Spotify and Apple podcasts, write a review, rate it, hopefully five stars, and definitely subscribe. 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.

[Corey]

Can't wait.