“What can I do today to build a better me?”

And a better generation of citizens-to-be

Something peculiar happened to me once I became fluent in Spanish. I stopped getting better at it.

I picked up the language 20 years ago. I’ve spent several of those years in Latin America. My Guatemalan-American partner and I speak Spanish at home with our 3 year old kid… whose Spanish is already better than mine.

This is a common phenomenon. Call it: cognitive entrenchment. Cliché it: “it’s harder to turn a big ship than a small ship.”

Either way, once people become experts, we easily plateau.

Stats show that once companies dominate an industry, their pace of innovation tends to slow.

Once I became a good writer, I slowed down becoming a better writer.

And then there are the people who manage to keep improving no matter how good they get at their craft. I’m jealous of them.

And I’m learning from them.

A New Book For Those Who Don’t Want To Plateau

A decade ago, a former football player interviewed me for his new podcast. It was called “The Learning Leader” and I was intrigued by its premise: interviewing leaders about how they continuously improve themselves.

Like most podcasts, it should have died within a year. Instead, “The Learning Leader” has gone on to more than 700 episodes. Its host, Ryan Hawk, has interviewed military generals, TV showrunners, trauma survivors, and some of the top CEOs and academics in the world. And I’ve watched Ryan himself go from “good leader” to “incredible leader” as he’s built and consulted for teams over these last ten years.

This is a testament to the premise of Ryan’s new book, which came out today. High performers know that most people overestimate what they can get done in a day, and UNDERESTIMATE what they can become in a year, or ten.

I highly recommend this book! Check it out here, and check out The Learning Leader here.

A Show For Those Who Don’t Want The Next Generation To Plateau

I saw The Odyssey in IMAX last week, and I can’t stop thinking about it. In particular, I was struck by the emphasis the story places on how Greece (Ithaca, Sparta, et al) was at the top of its game, and how the generations after Odiseus would crumble into dark ages.

Nobody I can think of (who isn’t a psychopath) wants the generation after them to be worse off than they are. And by many markers we’ve been better off each generation for hundreds of years. But we can’t take prosperity for granted.

Tomorrow’s leaders are growing up in a hurricane. Fake news, brainrot, friction-eliminating artificial intelligence, a backsliding of cultural decency toward “others.” If you’ve been following me recently, you know that this is why we created the kids and family TV series Fluff Piece—to teach kids and the adults in their lives media literacy and critical thinking skills that will help them be effective citizens.

The story behind Fluff Piece and what is really afoot is both a story of innovation and a quest to fight the human tendency to “give up” when we get to the top of the mountain. We’ve built a great society as human beings, but we need to keep improving or we’ll slide back like Ithaca.

That’s why Joe and I invited Fluff Piece showrunner Sylvia Brindis onto our podcast The Art Of The Zag this week:

Here’s what’s in the episode:
1:59 – What is Fluff Piece, and how we made it
4:31 – Radical adaptation after funding vanished six weeks before shooting
9:14 – Why media literacy, and the lesson of “Blue Drink”
15:58 – The indie TV bet: Innovation lessons from making the show
26:03 – How we raised the money and sold the show
38:02 – Where AI helped, and where it flopped
52:00 – Cognitive friction, and how 10x thinking can help us all get better

Listen on Spotify or Apple here.

A Parting Challenge

Some food for thought I’d like you to chew on: What’s an area in your life where you’re so good that you’re not getting better at it anymore?

And how can you get back to improving?

Think about that while I practice my Spanish.

Make a great day!

–Shane

Shane Snow is a producer, keynote speaker, and author of Dream Teams, Smartcuts, and The Storytelling Edge. If you liked this post, please share it along!