The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
302: Nick Kokonas - How To See The Genius In People
Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com
- Commonalities of sustaining excellence:
- Intellectual curiosity - A desire to learn. Not for the outcome, but for the curiosity to learn more
- Healthy degree of paranoia - What Jim Collins would call "productive paranoia"
- In the pursuit of excellence
- "No one is giving it away for free. It takes effort."
- Balance -- "I get manic at times. I'm not always well balanced." The skill is in being able to turn it on and off... Which can happen over time
- "I've always been curious about how things worked..."
- Why it was helpful to go to Colgate University
- A Liberal Arts school forced Nick to study areas outside of just his major. Made him more well-rounded
- He "learned how to learn" -- Forced him to wrestle with existential questions
- Rhetoric -- Can you understand all sides of an issue? Where does ambiguity exist?
- Need to learn to think critically -- How you do it is more important that you do it
- General advice:
- "Learn to communicate well. Concisely. Learn to write and speak well.
- From a psychology perspective, analyze, "what are they really saying?"
- Why he became a derivatives trader:
- "I got into law school, but didn't want to go."
- He tested well, but desired his independence
- "Prestige as part of pay doesn't matter to me."
- To be great at anything, you must be disciplined to show up everyday -- "My money has always been at risk everyday. Some think that's crazy. But I've always worked to have an edge."
- How to figure out outcomes as soon as possible
- The decision to leave the world of derivatives trading to open a restaurant... Why?
- "I took some money off the table... Then my dad died... and I thought, what am I doing? I had no idea what I was going to do next..."
- Meeting Grant Achatz and the impact that had on Nick's life...
- "He reminded me a lot of myself. He was thoughtful, driven, shy (this was the opposite), and he wasn't afraid of hard work."
- "I think I have a skill to see the genius in some people."
- "Grant's work is of artistic genius"
- Doing what you love and are passionate about:
- "For me the test is... When I wake up in the morning is it nagging at me to do it?"
