Graham Weaver
Founder and CEO / Stanford GSB Professor at Alpine Investors
Founder and CEO of Alpine Investors, one of the top-performing private equity firms in the world, and professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business where he teaches a top-rated course that helps students figure out what to do with their lives and escape autopilot mode.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Graham Weaver, CEO of one of the world's top-performing private equity firms and Stanford GSB professor, shares practical exercises for escaping autopilot mode and designing an intentional life. He walks through the genie framework for removing fear of failure from career decisions, the nine lives exercise, why everything you want is on the other side of worse first, and how to deconstruct limiting beliefs by writing them down and turning them into simple to-do items.
Leadership Principles
- → What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail? — The genie framework removes fear of failure to reveal what you actually want to pursue
- → Everything that you want is on the other side of worse first — the first move is always negative, which is why most people plateau and never move past it
- → Limiting beliefs are most dangerous when you don't even know what they are — writing them down strips them of power and turns them into to-do items
Notable Quotes
"Imagine you're walking home from work, you see this bright, shiny object, and you realize it's a magic lamp. The genie says, 'Whatever you throw yourself into with your whole life and your career, it's going to turn out great.' If that were true, what would you wish for?"
— On the genie framework for discovering your true career aspirations
"Everything that you want is on the other side of worse first. If I'm optimizing for tomorrow and I just want to have a great day tomorrow, I'm going to stay exactly where I am."
— On why growth requires willingness to endure short-term pain
"You're unconscious, and you may not even realize why you're doing what you're doing. That's not a day that is intentional. It's not a day where I've said, 'Where do I want to be going with my life?'"
— On the autopilot mode most people live in without realizing it
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