I Interviewed 700 World-Class Leaders (This is What They Taught Me)

I've been thinking a lot about value lately.

Not the kind of value you hear about in business school. Not "value proposition" or "value-add" or the hollow corporate speak that shows up in every LinkedIn post. I mean the real kind. The kind that determines whether people stay, whether they promote you, whether they trust you, and ultimately whether they want to work with you again.

Ryan Hawk brought this up halfway through our conversation, and it's been sitting with me ever since.

He was talking about his wife. And he said something that caught me off guard. He said: "The second I don't add value to her life, she should have no loyalties to stay with me."

Now, before you think that's cold or cynical or the kind of thing a business guy says instead of actually caring about people, listen to what he means.

He's not talking about transactional value. He's not keeping a ledger. He's talking about a fundamental orientation. Every single day, he asks himself: Am I making her life better? Am I solving problems she cares about? Am I showing up with intention?

And the brilliant part is that he extends that same logic to everything. Every client interaction. Every speech. Every podcast. Every conversation.

He told me he doesn't have contracts with his clients. He doesn't ask for payment until after the work is done. And if they don't think the work was good, they don't have to pay. Most people in his industry think he's insane. His publisher certainly did. But he's built one of the top leadership podcasts in the world by operating this way.

Because the moment you start asking "Am I adding value?" instead of "What do I deserve?", everything changes.

The Gap Between Effort and Reward

Here's what I learned from talking to Ryan: Hard work is the price of entry. It's not the thing that gets you paid. It's the minimum.

Think about your own life. You go to the gym. You work hard. But if you're not eating right, if you're not sleeping, if you're not doing the other things that matter, you don't get stronger. You just get tired.

Same with your career. Same with your relationships. Same with your business.

Ryan learned this the hard way. At 19 years old, he was a college quarterback. Four-year starter at Centerville High School. Never lost a job. Never sat on the bench. He moved to Miami University, worked his tail off, did all the extra stuff. Two games into his sophomore season, his coach pulled him and his competitor aside and said: "Ben gives us a better chance to win than you do."

That's it. That's the whole message. You worked hard. You did everything right. And it still wasn't enough because the other guy was more valuable.

He thinks about that moment every single day. He's 19, he's full of himself, and someone just told him the most basic truth about how the world works: effort doesn't equal results. Value equals results.

And that's the thing that most people never learn.

The Roethlisberger Principle

I started my business right out of college. I worked 80-hour weeks. I was obsessed. And I was broke. For years. I couldn't understand why.

I was doing everything right. I was showing up. I was working harder than my competition. And nothing was happening.

Then I started to realize: I wasn't solving problems people cared about. I wasn't adding real value. I was just working hard at something nobody wanted to pay for.

That's when everything shifted. Not because I worked harder. But because I started asking different questions.

What problem am I actually solving? Who cares about this solution? What specifically am I doing to make their lives better? Am I worth more than I cost?

Those questions changed my entire approach to business.

And that's what Ryan's book, "The Price of Becoming," is all about. It's not a book about work ethic. It's a book about value creation. It's a book about the flywheel of learning something, actually doing it, and then teaching it to other people. It's about consistency. It's about the compound effect of small decisions made over a long period of time.

But underneath all of it is this idea: The world doesn't care how hard you work. It cares about the value you create.

Consistency Compounds

Ryan spent 11 years having conversations with world-class leaders. Nearly 700 of them. Tony Robbins. Admiral McRaven. James Clear. Jocko Willink. He didn't know where it was going. He was learning. He was experimenting. He was figuring it out as he went.

And now he's built The Learning Leader Show into one of the top business podcasts in the world. He's written multiple bestsellers. He speaks on major stages. And through his coaching and masterminds, he works with leadership teams at some of the most impactful companies on the planet.

But it didn't happen because he worked harder than everyone else. It happened because he was consistent. He showed up. He did the work when nobody was watching. He asked good questions. He listened. He genuinely cared about the people he was talking to.

And over time, that consistency compounded.

That's the real magic. Not the breakthrough moment. Not the one big success. It's the thousand small decisions to show up, to add value, to get a little bit better than you were yesterday.

Ryan has a daily prompt he asks himself: "What did I do today to ensure I'm going to bed a little bit better than I was when I woke up?"

Not "What did I accomplish?" Not "What did I achieve?" Just: Did I get better? Did I add value? Did I do the work?

That's the question that compounds.

The Sales Mindset

Here's something that most people get wrong: They think sales is slimy. They think it's about manipulation. They think it's about convincing people to buy something they don't need.

Ryan thinks about it differently.

Sales is about understanding the gap between where someone is and where they need to be. It's about discovering whether your solution bridges that gap. And if it does, you help them. If it doesn't, you're honest about it.

That's it. That's sales.

And the thing is, everyone is in sales. Every email you send is a sales pitch. Every conversation with your spouse is you trying to sell them on your version of reality. Every job interview is you selling yourself.

But most people never learn to do it well. So they struggle. They feel like they're being pushy or slimy. They don't want to "sell" people.

And so they fail.

Ryan's first job after college was a brutal, high-quota, cold-calling sales job at LexisNexis. 60 nos a day. And he says it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Not because he loved sales. But because it taught him that rejection doesn't mean anything. The next person might say yes. And if they do, you help them solve a problem.

That's a skill that applies to everything.

Build for the Eights and Nines

Here's something Ryan said that stuck with me: "This book is not for fours and fives. This is a book for eights and nines who want to be tens."

His publisher didn't like that. They wanted him to make the book for everyone. Soft the message. Cast a wider net.

He refused.

Because he knows something that most people miss: The people who need the message the most are the ones who won't receive it. If you're a four or five, a book about compounding practices isn't going to resonate. You're not ready. You're not asking the right questions yet.

But if you're an eight or nine, if you're already crushing it and you want to get a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better, then this book is for you. Because it's not about starting. It's about excellence.

That's the insight I'm sitting with. There's a difference between a book that tries to help everyone and a book that deeply serves the people ready to listen.

In business, in marketing, in life, we spend so much time trying to appeal to the biggest possible audience. We soften our message. We make compromises. We try to be all things to all people.

And we end up being nothing to no one.

What if we built for the people who were already on the journey? What if we made something that was undeniably valuable for the people ready to pay attention?

That's a different game entirely.

The Price of Becoming drops in July 2026. You can listen to the full conversation on Marketing by Design, wherever you listen to podcasts.

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