I would just like spend my summer vacations trying to like send out what poems and short stories and whatever.
Oh, my goodness. Do you have any of those poems? Leftover?
Oh, yeah, yeah, they do actually, they're terrible.
Hey, but you got to start somewhere,
right actly Exactly.
In this episode, you'll get to know best selling author Dorie Clark, and you'll discover the fascinating story of how she went from receiving a Master's in theology from Harvard by the age of 22, becoming one of the world's leading authorities in strategic thinking. I'm Dave Crenshaw, and this is my success project. Welcome back friends to the Dave
Crenshaw Success Project. I am Dave Crenshaw, and this is a show where I'm teaching my children how to be successful through the life stories of others, but you get to come along for the ride. I'm a best selling author, I speak around the world to Fortune 500 companies. And I've taught millions of people how to be successful through my online courses. But I started this podcast as a project to really help my kids. I'm a father of three, I care about my kids, and I want them to grow up being
successful. But I also want to expose them to a lot of different ways that they might achieve that success and people that have achieved balanced success. So not just in one aspect of their life, like financially, the career, but lots of areas. And my goal with this was to create something that wouldn't just help them but would help you. Or if you have friends or family that you can share this with them, and you can discuss with them and look at ways that you can make it a
part of your life. And in fact, at the end of every episode, I create a list of actions that you can take. So you'll hear Dorie story and the things that she's done to be successful, and then I'll break it down into bite sized pieces. So you and the people that you're listening with, can say let's do one thing about this. Some of my guests, they're highly successful, perhaps you've heard about them in the news or on social media.
My guest today is certainly one of those because she's a best selling author, Wall Street Journal, best seller. And she has one of the most fascinating stories of success, one of the most unusual paths to success that she'll ever hear. But she practices everything that she preaches, she's become a good
friend of mine. When my family went to New York, she invited me to go to a Broadway show with her and she's just done lots of little friendly, nice things to build a connection through the years, and she's become someone that I consider a very dear friend we first met through her courses and LinkedIn learning. My guest today is Dorie Clark.
She's a world renowned speaker, consultant and the best selling author as I mentioned, the book, the long game, as well as entrepreneurial you reinventing you and stand out I met her as an instructor of LinkedIn learning. She's consistently one of the top course instructors that are there. She's been named to the top 50 Business thinkers in the world by thinker's 50, and was recognized as the number one communication coach in the world by Marshall Goldsmith leading global coaches awards.
She's a regular contributor to Fast Company and Harvard Business Review, and runs the show host better on Newsweek. In short, Dory has been taking the world by storm since the young age of 14. And you're going to hear the entire story right now, Dory, how you doing?
Hey, Dave, I'm so glad to see you. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, and I'm so excited because as I'm looking at this video, right now, I can tell you're in your new location, you've been living in New York for such a long time. And now you're in beautiful sunny Miami and I when I thought about starting the show, you know, on the premise of gathering stories of successful people that I know and, and sharing those stories with my kids and with my followers, you were right at the top of the list I thought I have to have you on. Because you have led
such an interesting life. You've done so many different things. And sometimes I think when someone has that many different experiences, it doesn't quite work out, right? Because there's too much going on. And yet you have accomplished so many things that I just had to have you share your story with us. I'm so grateful that you took the time to do this.
Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
We're going to share your whole arc. And I like to start with this question because it sets things up for the future. When you were young, what did you want to become? What did you think your career was going to be? And I'm talking not when you were like six or seven. I'm talking about you know, in your in your early teens, what did you think? I was going to be your career path.
Well, I guessing for a long time that I would be a lawyer. Because, you know, I feel like most people and frankly, most parents, I'm sure this is not you, Dave. But most parents are extremely uncreative about the career options that they kind of present to their kids. And so it's like, okay, if you're, if you're reasonably verbal, they'll be like, You should be a lawyer. And, you know, I mean, you get Doctor
pushed on you as well. But But then if you're a little too resistant to the whole frog dissection thing, then they're like, fine, fine, a lawyer. Sure. And I, I was interested in the concept. I mean, I think that it was not that I loved the law so much, but I wanted, you know, I was into school, I was a good student, I wanted to like do things, right. I wanted to, frankly, go for the thing that was like societally high status. So I was like, Yes, I'll go to law school. That's what I'll do.
And so that was that was in my head, probably from maybe eight to 12 or something like that. I started to get my own views when I was a little older.
Yeah, so right there. Let's pause on that. Because not many eight year olds say I want to be a lawyer. And yet when I've looked at your story, my the first time I read your bio, I'm like, I'm looking at a Doogie Howser right here, it seemed like you were so advanced so far ahead of the curve. Talk to me a little bit about what academics were like, because you were ahead of when most people go to college and such, right.
Yeah, I mean, I, I went to college when I was 14. And you know, people sometimes were like, Oh, my God, that's so early, I can't believe it. You know, the truth is, as long as you're reasonably intelligent, and as long as you're reasonably mature, there's a thing that plenty of people could do, I just think we have kind of the wrong expectations. I grew up as an only child, and all the people in my life were older. And I mean, much older. So I'm sure there's downsides to those
things. But there's also upsides. And the upside, is you just become a pretty mature person. And if your social context is adults, you are going to kind of think that way and get into that mode. So it's not that I was so special or so smart, going off to school, or, or whatever. I think that it was just really a different social context.
Yeah, well, and I also think that you're being humble, which I appreciate about you. But it was exceptional. I would think that because you're making those decisions so early, you maybe had pressure to choose a career path too early. Or, or maybe that wasn't there. Did your parents just say, Hey, you can do whatever you want, you're capable of doing whatever you want? Or were they sort of trying to push you a certain direction. During that time?
I don't really remember my parents exerting any sort of pressure, or even even really suggestions about careers. I was the one that was interested in it. I mean, by the time I got to college, for sure, my my mom had opinions. And she still wanted me to be a lawyer. She was like, Why can't you know you wanted to be a lawyer? What happened to that? She she thought that would that would have been a better move. But no, as a little kid, I was just I was just interested in that stuff. I was in this
very small town. And it really felt like nothing was happening. And I think that is in fact, because nothing was happening. You know, the only the only way you'd sort of see things was like on on TV. And of course, we didn't have cable, there was no Internet, and you'd read books and stuff, but it just seemed like stuff was happening everywhere else, not where I was.
Okay. Was that motivational for you? Yeah, I wanna, you
know, I wanted to I wanted to get out, I wanted to get get going, living my life. So for me, the world of work was very interesting and appealing. I had a very non sophisticated understanding of it. But as a kid growing up in the 80s, I mean, I was like, I've watched la law, and I'm like, Oh, wow, that's so sophisticated, are like the Michael J. Fox movie, The secret of my success. And he's like this intern in New York. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh,
oh, that's incredible. So So I wanted to be out there and doing things.
Well, and I guess not, not as a lawyer, obviously. But I would say that you've achieved a lot of that you do live a very sophisticated life and you have accomplished very sophisticated things. So I guess good things came from you watching television in the 80s. A little bit.
That's right. That's, that's the moral of this story. Yeah.
Watch, watch TV. It'll help you out. What was the what was your first degree in?
I got an undergraduate degree in philosophy, okay. I was really into the liberal arts. I loved it. reading and learning and thinking, thinking about big ideas, because it really does help you think critically, you know, learning about the history of ideas and how people have conceptualized the world, I think is really powerful. But I want to just take a minute, Dave, I'm really curious about about you like,
what was, what was your arm? I mean, I know from from my book for the long game, you were talking about how it was really important to you as a value even early on that you wanted to have a job where you weren't like working yourself to death, because you wanted to spend a lot of time with your family. But how did you first decide that entrepreneurship? Was Was the ticket? Like, was it very clear from the beginning that that was going to be the case for you? Or did you kind of stumble into that?
You know, it was it was an interesting thing is that it was driven by fear. And I had a conversation with a friend of ours, Kwame Christian, who's also a LinkedIn learning instructor. And he overcame his fear of negotiation to become a negotiator for me. I grew up around failed entrepreneurs, I called them I call them entrepreneur, serial killers, and they would start businesses and they would fail. And so I kind of had this morbid fascination with why is this happening? can't Can't we stop
this. And that eventually led me to entrepreneurship. I mean, originally, I thought it was going to be Steven Spielberg, I wanted to be a movie director. And I love that you said philosophy, by the way. In fact, I have a book right up here on my shelf, that's just sort of like a summary of philosophical ideas. And whenever I feel like I'm getting stuck in my thinking, I just pull that out. Because even if you don't agree with a certain philosophy, the act of assessing whether or not
you agree with it is powerful. I think it stirs ideas. I'm assuming you can relate to that. That's very cool. Dave, I love that. Okay, so you studied philosophy. I'm also fascinated with your next degree. Right? So what did you choose to study? Next? You graduate in philosophy? Like, I haven't had enough school? I need some more of it. Well, it was
it was that but it was also, I was 18 When I graduated from college, and the idea of like, getting a full time job and sort of entering into my career when I was 18. Just it felt it felt a little weird. Like I still, I didn't really think of myself as super young. But going into a workplace. Everybody really did feel significantly older than me. And so.
And can I pause on that for a second? I think that that really, really makes sense in terms of your academics, because you were ahead. So it wasn't like, you were eager to jump in and start making money quickly. You were just you just got a really, really deep education early, and you just wanted to expand that education. That's how I'm perceiving this. Yeah,
I mean, I felt I felt like I had time, I ended up going to Harvard Divinity School and getting a masters of theological studies. So I spent two years studying lots of different aspects of religion, although the broad category that I specialized in was known as Christianity and culture.
So I think when most people hear Harvard Divinity School, they're thinking, here's someone who wants to become clergy, was that even in your mindset, when you chose to study that,
I thought about it for like a hot minute, not because I really had such a deep seated passion to to be a clergy member, per se. But I didn't always have this language. But I've always been an advocate of social proof, and ways to sort of Marshal as much credibility in one's endeavors as possible. And so at the time, I was really thinking that a potentially viable career choice for me would be professional advocacy work, and like nonprofit
advocacy. And, you know, I was doing a lot of volunteering, I was doing a lot of campus activism and stuff like that. And so I thought, gosh, you know, there's, there's really like a lot of moral authority that comes with being a member
of the clergy. And so, you know, maybe this would be a useful thing to do, not to literally serve as a as a minister, but to sort of have that have that credential of knowledge and learning in addition, so I was like, Okay, I'll just, I'll just get the MTS and be fine with that.
So how has that degree in theology that master's in theology, how has that influenced your work today,
what I've come to realize it's not so much literally what I studied in Divinity School, but I do see a through line in terms of the reason I went to divinity school and broadly speaking, why I was studying at a high level what I was studying, and that is, I was interested in religion, then and now because it is for many people. A and historically
throughout time. It has been the way that people made sense of their lives, the way that people found meaning in their life was through a religious narrative, or that was their understanding of the world and how they fit into it. And I have always been interested in those kind of
existential questions. And I actually think that in many ways, the work that I do today is not dissimilar in the sense that in a modern, largely secular society, work serves a similar purpose today in terms of how people find meaning and make meaning in their lives.
So would you consider yourself not religious, but aware and respectful of it? Or is there a religious aspect to the way that you approach life?
I am not really personally religious, but I find it super, super interesting. And I always I always love learning about religions and learning about religious traditions and you know, exploring things and taking taking tours and, you know, visiting temples and visiting mosques and you know, all the all the things, I think it's a really fantastic way to understand different people and just understand the world.
Yeah, and I'm seeing a common thread there, which is your desire to connect with people. You're so fantastic at that. And I think that understanding that gives you one more way to connect with people. I know, we've had a few conversations about that as well. But that makes you an effective teacher, which is your you're a world class. I mean, if you but boil it down to it, I know you're more than a teacher, but you're world class and your ability to educate people, I'm
sure. A lot of that comes from your understanding of the philosophies and beliefs of others.
Oh, well, that's very kind. Thank you, Dave, I certainly think it is true that the more you are able to understand the internal nuances and use the language and be familiar with that. have given communities know what's important, the more you can fit in, the more you can make a connection with people. Because you know, it's always a little hard. Like if you're trying to get to know people, and they're like, Whoa, that person is really an outsider. They don't know a thing about how we
operate. But if you at least have enough knowledge so that you can contextualize things and you know, ask useful questions and not make a jerk of yourself.
Let's accelerate the timeline a little bit you You graduated with? And you've originally it sounds like you were thinking of advocacy for nonprofits. Is that where you started? Or did you end up somewhere else?
I actually never well, it's not true. I did. I did for a couple of years have a nonprofit job. I was the executive director of a Bicycle Advocacy Organization in Massachusetts. So okay, I was that was
God get out and start riding your bike, everybody. That's right.
That's right. Okay. Again, a pitch Davis, you know, it's the Bicycle Advocacy is the one solution that simultaneously improves the environment, transportation and public health, whoa, you want three for right there, solve all the world's problems, the bicycle will do it.
So got that pitch down from That's right.
That's right. But no before before that, I've done a lot of volunteer work. But broadly speaking, I did not enter into a activist career, even though I was really interested in a lot of social change issues. But my original thought was, after I finished my master's degree, was that I would get a doctorate and go into academia. So I got my master's in theological studies. And I applied to three different doctoral programs in English literature, but I got turned
down by all of them. So I had to, like suddenly really fast do a pivot, because I was not anticipating being turned down. So I ultimately was able, after a lot of scrapping and scraping and doing internships and stuff, I finally got my first paid job as a, as a political journalist and an alternative news weekly.
So writing, and maybe is this where the idea started to generate or did you already think eventually, I'm going to write a book, because now you've written several very successful books. Is that where your interest in writing first began? Or was there something before that?
I loved books and even as a kid and wanted to write books again, if we're if we're going back to the nerdy things that I did as a young child, I could jold My mother into buying me there was there used to be maybe there still is although I don't know who would buy it now in this format, but there was a big, big thick book that they used to sell Oh, at the local bookstore, like the Walden books or whatever, and it was called the Writers Market. And every year Oh, yeah, it was it was
this big 800 Page publishers and agents and that sort of thing.
That's right. And it's like every, everywhere the huge compendium of like, where you can publish your work, and all different styles and all different genres, and I would make her buy it for me. And it was expensive at the time, it was like 25 or $30, when, you know, most books did not cost that for multiple years, for at least three years, I had copies when I was a kid, of the Writers
Market. And I would just like spend my summer vacation is trying to like send out like poems and short stories and whatever.
Oh, my goodness, that's never before. I love it. I love it. So that was already there. Part of it. Do you have any of those poems? Leftover? Oh, yeah.
Yeah, they do. Actually. They're terrible.
Hey, but you got to start somewhere. Right? actly? Exactly. So in 2006, I have here that that's when you founded Clark, strategic communications. What was that? What is that?
Yeah, so so that was when I became self employed. I mean, clerk strategic communications is really just you have to, you have to have a name for your business entity. So that's, that's what I picked.
But it sounds very prestigious. And that's a great way to go.
Yes, very August. But I knew really from the beginning, that I was never interested, as a business model in having a company that I would grow and try to sell or something like that. It just was not what I wanted. It felt too confining. I wanted to be self employed. And I wanted to have a huge amount of autonomy. In doing that I have managed over the years to keep my business very lean. I've never had a full time employee, I use 1099, subcontractors and
things like that. But it has been great, because it has meant that there's quite a bit of autonomy, and it means that you're able to keep your margins Very good. Your profit margins,
how did you get your your first client, I think when someone listens to this, and they hear they hang the shingle up, they have their business or self employed, that is the first most difficult thing to overcome. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about who your first client was and how you got them.
I honestly, I don't even quite remember who my very first client was. But I one of the first Yeah, in terms of one of the first, basically, I mean, I started my company when I was not that old. I was 27. So I did not have a base of professional experience. I was I started when I was 23. Oh, wow, nice. Yeah, I was always like really jealous of the people who started when they were like 50. And they like knew 100 CEOs, like oh, man, because I clearly did not know
any CEOs. But I did what I would advise most people to do, which is that I had worked with some people, you know, I knew some people. And the people who are willing to give you a chance are the people who already know you in some capacity and know that you are competent. So my first major clients that I worked with repeatedly, one was called Stanford children, which was a
education nonprofit. And the reason I ended up working with them is that for years prior to starting my business in 2002, I worked on a political campaign. And one of the people who I worked with who was the volunteer coordinator on that campaign, went on to get hired as the executive director of Stanford children. And so when I started my business, I sent out a message to everybody I knew, and I'm like, Hey, I'm starting this business. And so she, you know, reached out and was like,
oh, maybe you can help us. And so it was not that hard, thankfully, to, to land some clients, because I had people that I had built up a strong enough relationship with, that they knew that I didn't necessarily have a lot of experience doing literally this thing, but they knew that I was generally competent, and could probably be helpful to them.
What was your biggest obstacle during those years? What were what were you having to overcome in order to get those 1000s of small clients?
I'll answer the question in two different ways. One thing that your question sort of implies it and it is true. One of the things that was a struggle was that almost all my work was for was with nonprofit organizations, or, you know, in the case of the National Park Service, it was a government agency that just really did not have large budgets. And so I realized pretty early on, I mean, you know, for a few years, it was great because I'm just like, okay, building the business,
filling my my roster. But eventually I realized, like, Oh, my income is going to be really severely capped. If these are the only people that I work with, like, you know, it's not like, oh, they could pay you so much more and they're not like Actually, they're like a nonprofit, like they don't have a lot of money. So that was a challenge was that I realized that I would have to shift the type of clients that I was working with, I would have to make, make friends with more
corporate clients. And I didn't know who those people were, I didn't have those connections. And so I really had to be very, very strategic in building up my reputation and connections in a totally new market.
Okay, so that you answered one question that I had, which is where did the transition come from, from nonprofit to for profit? Because I mean, I know you do work with nonprofits now. But that is not your primary customer now. Right,
right. Yeah. No, I, I had to really consciously cultivate that over a period of years, for sure.
Was that hard to let go of? I mean, it seemed like everything you were doing prior to that was about nonprofits and social advocacy. And then now you're working with for profit companies. Did that hurt at all? Was that painful? Or were you completely okay with that?
No, I didn't have any problems whatsoever with that. I also for several years, kind of had a transitional period, I guess, where I continued to work on political campaigns, doing consulting, doing outside consulting, and eventually stopped. Because I came to realize that they were the political campaigns were both the least remunerative thing I was doing. Also the most stressful.
So your first book came out in 2013. And you've had several books since then, including the long game, which just came out and did quite well, Wall Street Journal best seller?
Well, mostly because I featured Dave Crenshaw on it.
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. But you know, you featured a lot of friends that that you have, who have done their own unique things to craft a successful life. Talk to me about the role that these books have played in your success?
Well, I'm, I'm a big fan of writing books in general. I mean, it doesn't literally have to be a book, you know, some people if they are not excited about writing or not comfortable. You know, there's, there's a million other modalities, whether it's audio or video or whatever. But I do believe that it's really important to be sharing your ideas publicly, because that's how that's how you sharpen your ideas. And that's how you get
known for your ideas. A point that I make in a lot of my work is that if you want to be recognized more widely, if you want to get to the situation, I think, frankly, most entrepreneurs or most business professionals want to get to, which is, gosh, wouldn't it be nice if people came to me, instead of me having to constantly be like, Hey, want to hire me? That's what we want, right is to be known for a reputation and sought out for it. Well, guess what you really can't be you almost structurally
can't be. If people don't know what your ideas are. You have to give them something transmissible so that they can see for themselves that you're smart that you make sense that you can help them otherwise all they all they'll get is like somebody saying, Well, you know, Dave's a really nice guy, but like, that's not enough reason to hire Dave. They need to see the LinkedIn course.
Yeah, well, if you can hand someone a book, yeah. And say, Here it is. I also find too, I love that give them something transmissible. I also think that that process of putting it together in a book helps you solidify what you believe in as a teacher. Have you is that what you've experienced?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's it requires a sort of distillation, it's really important to get clear on it.
So you're also as you listed as a professor at Duke. Is that correct? So how much of your time is devoted to that still, because I know you're doing so many different things.
Yeah, it's it's a piece that is important to me. I've been teaching at Duke for nearly a decade now. Next Next year, it'll be a decade. But it is in terms of my overall portfolio, a relatively small amount of time. I teach a couple of times a year and executive education program at Tuco, which is Dukes business school. It's something that I definitely enjoy doing.
And use the great word there that I want to highlight, which is portfolio. You have a lot of things in your portfolio, you've got the books you have being a university professor, we have the we mentioned the accolades that you've received from Marshall Goldsmith and being one of the top thinkers in the world. You also have LinkedIn learning, where you have lots of different courses. And I want to talk about that in just a second. But I'd like to get your perspective on the value of a diverse
portfolio of work. Was that has that been on purpose? Or has that been accidental to create that?
It has largely been on purpose in the sense that it took me quite a while to operationalize this, but I had a real revelation early in my career in 2001 when I was working as a journalist and It was my first paid full time job. And I had been doing it for just about a year. And I ended up getting laid off very unexpectedly on September 10 2001. And, you know, planning my job search the next day,
which surely didn't happen. And just recognizing how fragile the situation can be if you only have one income source, I mean, you know, they gave me less than a week severance, they gave me four days of severance, because I had already worked Monday. So they paid me, you know, generous guys, they paid me through the end of the week. And then, you know, in the midst of this national economic crisis, national homeland security crisis, it's like, oh, okay, well guess you got to figure out
how to support yourself now. I mean, it was just so alarming. And I realized, oh, my gosh, I would like to try to take the steps so that I never have to be in that situation, again, that if one because things change, you know, clients can can get rid of you either suddenly, or over time, a gig that you thought was locked up might change or be cancelled. And you just can't be overly rely on to on any one thing. That's a real
structural vulnerability. And so it's really important to have that portfolio so that if one thing goes down, you don't have to have the structure implode?
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me to someone who has courses on thinking strategically, and you built a whole career out of strategy, that you would make diversification a part of your strategy because of that protection. Yeah,
you're more of a go deep guy, rather than a go wide guy, though.
You know what, and that's part of the reason why I'm doing this podcast because I truly believe that there are infinite pathways to success. And I like the fact that in that case, at least, there are a lot of similarities. We have a slightly different philosophy, and it's worked for me, and it's worked for you. And so someone listening to this can say, you know, maybe I want to be more diverse like Dorie Clark and have these different ways to, to protect my strategic
investment. Or maybe I want to be a little more like Dave, where you just really ride what's hot as long as you can, and you just set money aside and prepare for the future. While you're doing that both get you the same result, just different levels of what you're comfortable with.
Totally. Yeah.
You know, I didn't ask this. But I have to ask this before we go Broadway musical. You've written a Broadway musical, is that correct?
I have written a musical that I would like to one day go to Broadway, just to be clear. Okay, you've written a Musical for Broadway. That's right. That's right. I have not made it there yet. But I am aiming. My goal that I created, actually, back in 2016, is I had a 10 year goal for myself that I wanted to write a musical that would make it to Broadway by the 2026 season. So I am continuing to march forward and attempting to make progress on that I was starting literally from a
standing start. I had never written a musical did not know how to write musicals. And over the past six years, I feel like there's been a lot of progress, I was accepted into and completed a pretty prestigious musical theater training program. I have now written a complete musical, I'm actually working on two others, as well. The musical it's called Absolute Zero had a staged reading in
Dallas earlier this year. Just last week, we we meaning my composer, collaborator, and myself won second place with a musical in a competition run by NMI, which is a new musicals Incorporated, which is a prestigious outfit out of Los Angeles, that sort of fantastic articles. So we're we're working on it trying to get there.
I love it. How important is that to you to have something very different than your day to day job? Do you feel like that's an essential part of your success? I'm trying not to lead you with the question. But how does that fit into your strategy for your life?
It fits in actually because this is part of a portfolio career sort of strategy, right? I think of this. And this is a concept that I write about in the long game. I think of this as being part of my 20% time where I'm doing sort of experimental activities, writing musicals, has it made me money? The answer is yes, I believe the specific amount is $200. Over the past six years.
So I have made money. But this is not anything I'm going to retire on or even pay my rent or you know, my internet bill, we have to be very clear. That being said, for most things in life, if you are trying to build a skill set, there is a very long incubation period where something does not make you any money at all. But eventually when you get good when you get proficient there's sort of a tipping point where if it actually did go to Broadway, I can make a lot of money from it.
You know, this this could be very lucrative. I mean, not that money per se as well, why I'm doing it but just as one measure. So this really is The process. And it's a process that if I tried to do it in a year, I mean, obviously it would never work, right. I mean, this is this is a very long term endeavor of learning to do something, doing it, building connections, getting sufficient credentials to be able to do
this. So I think it's important for me to hedge, because the work that I do over the years, it may change, I may get bored or feel like I need a new challenge or whatever, like, you've got to prepare for all kinds of eventualities. And so giving yourself a decade long goal with plenty of time to operationalize it and execute it, I think is quite important. And this is my version of that
the you use, I loved your word experimental time that 20% I use a similar concept, which is gambling, there's a certain amount of your time that you can devote to gambling on something speculative, not I'm not talking about going to Vegas and putting money I'm talking about saying, You know what, I'm going to spend a little bit of my time on a musical. The question is, how much can I afford to risk on that? How much time can I afford
to risk? How much money can I afford to risk and I wrote a, I wrote a sci fi book for kids. And that was a risk of time and money. And I think it's good to have those sorts of things where there's just an opportunity for something unexpected to occur. Absolutely. Before I wrap this up, I need to highlight how amazing you are at connecting with people. And that's a big part of your overall success.
I've experienced it personally in a lot of little ways, in which you, Dorie have reached out and have done just lovely things. Like, for instance, when my family went to New York, and we were staying there at an Airbnb in Queens for for a month. And I reached out to you and said, Hey, we're in town, can we connect? And you're like, I have this tickets to a Broadway show? Do you want to come with me? And we hadn't even
known each other then. And then you said, Hey, we're having a gathering of friends, would you like to come join us for dinner, and you have these gatherings all the time. And it's gotten way beyond that to like, you know that I'm a fan of non alcoholic cocktails, right? I don't drink but I love lots of exotic mocktails. And you sent me a amazing bottle of non
alcoholic spirits. And every once in a while you'll send me hey, here are places in New York where you can get a drink, You're so thoughtful and so aware of other people's needs. And I know that there are two reasons for that, because I know you, I've gotten to know you quite well. And one is you just genuinely care about people. And to you also understand that there's long term value in doing
that sort of thing. Can you share just a little bit about maybe your philosophy or your process of building connections with other people?
Yeah, well, thank you, Dave, I, it's very kind of you. And I appreciate it. I would say when it comes to building connections, and things like that, I think where a lot of this comes from, in many ways, is I think of myself as an introvert. And, you know, there's just, there's a lot of situations where people do not put sufficient time or care into the conditions under which people can form relationships.
And it's not, it's not that easy to form relationships, especially as an adult, in school, in college, you're sort of just thrown in with a bunch of people your age that you inherently have huge amounts in common with, you know, you're taking the same classes, you're doing the same thing. So it's relatively easy to make friends there. But as an adult, it's, it's harder, the conditions are harder, they're less frequent.
And yet, so many of the opportunities that we have, are things that are just not conducive at all, it's like it's a party, but it's too loud to actually hear anyone talk anyway. Or, you know, it's it's a gathering, and you don't know anyone, but nobody has name tags. And so you don't know who's there. They tell you their name, but you can't hear it anyway.
And you're uncomfortable to reach out to somebody new, especially if you're an introvert. Absolutely. And
there's probably people there that will be worthwhile for you to meet, but you don't know who they are, because there's no guide posts on it. And so it just, it feels like this totally hit or miss thing that's actually incredibly uncomfortable. And so I just hate situations like that. And over time, I've actually gotten almost almost like really angry about it. When when people are so careless with those opportunities, because they have the opportunity to create something so much better and so
much nicer. I mean, it's a real mitzvah to be able to help people craft relationships with other people like it makes me so happy when I can help people become friends. And it just doesn't take a lot. It takes, you know, a little bit of planning a little bit of care. I had my birth Stay yesterday, and
I had a birthday dinner. And first of all, instead of a birthday party, which I've gone to many birthday parties, and it's like, whatever, 50 people, and it's just like it well, it's nice for you as the host, because you know, everybody, but you know, the other people they don't know everybody it's like, it can be very nerve wracking and uncomfortable. And I think maybe if somebody's an extrovert, or maybe I don't know, if they have better skills than I do, they are not daunted
by a situation like that. But I am, I just don't like it one bit. So I've learned to try to avoid those scenarios over time. So my version of a birthday gathering, it's half a dozen people, it's a dinner. In advance of it. We sent out an email with bios of the attendees links to their LinkedIn profile. So everybody would know who was there, they could think in advance about what they wanted
to talk about with people. And then at the start of the dinner, we had everyone go around and do introductions, so that it was a reminder of who was who. And we had people give a little bit of background about who they were and what they were up to, and whatever, so that for the rest of the night, you could grease the wheels with conversational possibilities that were actually salient and relevant, and gave people a fighting chance to make a real friend as compared to just sipping your drink and
standing in the corner. So I really feel like just with a little bit of extra thought and care, people can can create positive conditions for other folks. And I wish more people would do that, because it's just not that hard.
Yeah, and I've attended some of those dinners. And you always encourage everyone to answer a thought provoking question like what's a big win for you in the last three months, that sort of thing. But you're right, you're establishing the rules of the game, that make it possible for people to connect. I really appreciate that about you. And I hope everyone listening just grabbed on to what you taught, because you are skilled, you are intelligent, you are gifted at
what you do. But those connections are what really allow you to use those gifts, and help people. All right, we could do this for hours, I could, we could all learn from you. And thankfully, if only there were a place people could go like LinkedIn learning where
they could learn from you. What I always do at the end of these interviews Dory, though, is I like to pause and highlight a few actions that someone listening could take so my kids could take it or anyone listening could say, What's one thing I'm going to do because I think if you take one thing out of what Dorie said, and you make it a part of your life, you've now got a little bit of Dorie Clark with you for the rest of your life. So I'm going to highlight three things Dory that
I saw are possible actions. And then I'd love for you to add one or two to that after I've done love it. Thank you, Dave. Okay, so the first one, and we saw we've seen this throughout Dorries life, especially with the degrees that she got is expose yourself to new ideas, challenging ideas, maybe even ideas that you don't believe in or agree with. But just seek it
out. Go, go get a book on philosophy, go get a book on religion, go get anything, that is something you don't understand yet, and learn about it. And just the act of exposing yourself to that new challenging idea will stir possibilities in your life. The second thing is voyage just if you could take a part of Dorries desire to connect with people from the beginning, you know, trying to find out the way that people found meaning in their life, and
understanding others. And then we hear just recently the effort into connecting with others. Do something to understand someone that you don't know if there's somebody that you work with, or that you're associated with and you don't know how to connect with them. Try to figure out who they are and what they what they believe in. And maybe you can find a way to connect with them.
And then I want to highlight your phrase, give people something transmissible in terms of your ideas, share your ideas publicly, and you don't have to
write a book. Just maybe next week, take a make a social media post about something that you're working on or thinking about and take the time to maybe write a paragraph or two or even put together a you know, a one minute video and share it with people the act of sharing it publicly will help you solidify your ideas and it will help you become better known for what it
is that you care about. Okay, so those are three out of a million I could have gotten Dory, what's one or two suggested actions you would would give to someone listening? All right. Thank
you, Dave. Well, I would say building on the great points that you identified. One that I would add is don't be afraid to be a host. I think that a very large percentage of people I feel like hosting is not something they can do. Or it's something that they've never thought about doing. And so they end up waiting for other people's invitations. And they just feel like connecting people or whatever is out of their reach. But the truth is, most people are just crying out to be
invited. And it becomes a really wonderful thing you can do for people invite someone for the first time and make that first move, and they won't forget it, they'll be generally extremely happy, and you're doing a really good deed. And I wish that more people recognize that that was well within their power.
Oh, man, I love that concept. I've never put it heard it put that way. Be a host. Have you written anything about that? Is that is that a chapter in any of your books?
Not necessarily. No, no. So maybe I should make a
great, a great post. I think that would be a wonderful thing to share with people. And you practice what you preach. You're going to be a host to a gathering there in Miami. Coming up soon that I'm really excited about. So you absolutely live that principle. I'm so glad that you agreed to do this. I'm I feel like you've given us so much wisdom and so many pearls and nuggets that people can apply in their lives. Thank you for your generosity in doing that.
Thank you Dave. I so appreciate the chance to talk with you. If folks want to check out my stuff. You can go to Dorie clark.com/the, long game, you can get a free strategic thinking self assessment, and you know, tap into some of the stuff that I'm doing. And it's really a treat to get to spend time with you virtually Dave.
Yeah, and you beat me to it. A lot of my listeners also are on LinkedIn learning. If you haven't yet you absolutely need to take Dorie Clark's courses there they are world class. Thank you, Dori, for being on and thank you everyone for listening. Remember, it's not just about the knowledge received, it's about the action that you take. So please think of one thing that you're going to do and do it and then you'll take Dorie Clark with you for the rest of your life,
even listening so they can share success projects hosted by my dad, Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated sound editing was done by my brother Stretton contract research and assistant production by Victoria Bidez. Voiceover by me, Darcy Crenshaw show consulting by Andrew Marino ln music is by Ryan Brady via pond pipe licensee. Please subscribe to the Dave conscious Success Project on Google podcast, Apple podcast or wherever you like to
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