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Speaker 2: It is Bloomberg BusinessWeek. That's Carol Masser on Tim Stenebeck.
Speaker 2: Little quiz, Carol, what's you? Outside magazine, the legendary Warren
Speaker 2: Miller film Tour, the mat, my fitness suite of apps. Yes,
Speaker 2: that includes about my Ride, my run, et cetera.
Speaker 3: This is something you know a lot about.
Speaker 2: The event registration platform athlete reg and the mountain biking
Speaker 2: site pink Bike all have in common.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, this is why I have you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: here's the answer. They're just a handful of the more
Speaker 2: than two dozen brands under the umbrella of the Outdoor
Speaker 2: Media company. Outside interacts with a lot of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's twenty five brands there, some of them that are
Speaker 2: like legacy companies, right, some digital only companies. Really runs
Speaker 2: the gamut. Robin Thurston is the founder and CEO. He's
Speaker 2: been trying to build the antidote to legacy and social media.
Speaker 2: He joins us from Boulder, Colorado, which I think makes
Speaker 2: a lot of sense in the space that he's in.
Speaker 2: Totally second day in a row, we've had someone from
Speaker 2: Boulder on the program too. By the way, I am
Speaker 2: keeping track, Robin, welcome. Before we get to what you're
Speaker 2: doing over at Outside Interactive, let's get more of your story.
Speaker 2: Because you created matt my Fitness and sold it to
Speaker 2: under Armour a bit more than a decade ago for
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty million dollars. Then earlier this year
Speaker 2: you bought it back from under Armour. A lot happened
Speaker 2: in between. Give us the story there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've been certainly in this space for a very
Speaker 5: long time. I actually grew up as a bike racer,
Speaker 5: so even in the early eighties, I've been in and
Speaker 5: around the outdoor space. But what happened with Matt May is,
Speaker 5: you know, we had a really good run and stewardship
Speaker 5: from under Armor for a decade and a couple of
Speaker 5: years ago they sold another company we bought while I
Speaker 5: was there, called my Fitness Pal, and I just kind
Speaker 5: of kept knocking at the door and saying, like, you know,
Speaker 5: depending on what you do with it, you know, I'd
Speaker 5: love to have an opportunity to buy it back, And
Speaker 5: that opportunity came up at the beginning of this year,
Speaker 5: and we pursued that, you know, sort of with them
Speaker 5: and found a good path to getting it back and
Speaker 5: you know, not only rebranding it to the original matt
Speaker 5: My brands, but you know, having it underneath the Outside
Speaker 5: portfolio and starting to really deeply integrateed. So really exciting
Speaker 5: for me to have it back. And my co founder,
Speaker 5: Kevin Callahan was already working at Outside, so he's now
Speaker 5: helping me run matt My again. So he was one
Speaker 5: of the original co founders of matt My. And so
Speaker 5: it's kind of like the whole families back together.
Speaker 2: Is there like an anchor brand in the umbrella?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 2: Is it matt My? This was a relatively new addition
Speaker 2: to the portfolio, But is this like the anchor now?
Speaker 5: You know, if I think about our biggest products, most
Speaker 5: recognized products outside magazine, outside television, clearly or anchors. I
Speaker 5: mean we actually, you know, when we bought them, we
Speaker 5: renamed the company Outside Interactive because it's the best brand
Speaker 5: in the category. Pink Bike is an absolute enormous site
Speaker 5: globally in the mountain bike community.
Speaker 2: It's been around forever. I mean since I since like
Speaker 2: basically when I started mountain biking.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean twenty five years. We bought it in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one, you know, so pink Bike and outside.
Speaker 5: But on the mapping side, no question, matt May is
Speaker 5: our biggest asset. Now we own trail forks and Gaya
Speaker 5: GPS as well, and now we're the number two player
Speaker 5: in the mapping space with you know, nearly a hundred
Speaker 5: million users in mapping and over one hundred million users
Speaker 5: total for the outside platform.
Speaker 2: So I don't like to use the term synergies because
Speaker 2: I think it's kind of like a throwaway word. But
Speaker 2: when you're talking about, you know, a portfolio like this,
Speaker 2: there are certain synergies I couldn't help. But notice I did.
Speaker 2: I read it starred for a cyclic cross race a
Speaker 2: few months ago. Carol Bike. Redge is the company that
Speaker 2: for you know, for ab more than a decade I've
Speaker 2: been using you guys now own it, Robin. I've realized
Speaker 2: I I got this week an outside magazine in the mail.
Speaker 2: Did I get that? Did I get that because I
Speaker 2: registered for my cross race on bike Redge.
Speaker 5: It's possible or it could have been part of you know,
Speaker 5: if you are a member or have you know, historically
Speaker 5: signed into Pink Bike or Trail Forks or one of
Speaker 5: the other platforms, it's possible it was from one of those,
Speaker 5: you know, without looking at your user account, which I
Speaker 5: don't do, you know, unless we're friends on the platform.
Speaker 5: You know, I wouldn't know unless we had client service
Speaker 5: look into it. But you know, the ideas, yes, those
Speaker 5: synergies exist so that we can cross pollinate and and
Speaker 5: really you know, single sign on now the entire platform,
Speaker 5: you use one log in. We have one membership layer
Speaker 5: called Outside Plus that is you know, over three hundred
Speaker 5: dollars of value that we sell at ninety bucks a year.
Speaker 5: You know, that really gives you premium access to all
Speaker 5: of the pieces. And so the goal really was that
Speaker 5: was creating more of a first party data platform that
Speaker 5: really you know knows you know, when you switch say
Speaker 5: let's say you're a skier and you're skiing in the winter,
Speaker 5: you know, you're using Ski Magazine, you're using Gaya for
Speaker 5: the trail maps and things like that, and then all
Speaker 5: of a sudden, you switch to mountain biking in the summer.
Speaker 5: Now we have a good idea about that in the ecosystem,
Speaker 5: and that allows us to serve, you know, the best
Speaker 5: content and services to you kind of in real time
Speaker 5: and make suggestions so that you ultimately spend more time outdoors.
Speaker 3: So go to your website. Twenty five brands, eighty million
Speaker 3: and counting monthly reach, twenty eight million plus social followers,
Speaker 3: two hundred plus employees. So, Robin, how do you think
Speaker 3: about your FO one hundred?
Speaker 4: Oh sorry outdated?
Speaker 3: Oh okay, forgive me. You got to talk to your website people.
Speaker 3: But I understand like things are moving fast. So how
Speaker 3: do you see you guys? Are you a content company?
Speaker 3: Is it about data like getting a very niche population
Speaker 3: and a data set around them that's certainly going to
Speaker 3: be of interest to other people who will pay for that.
Speaker 3: Is it about marketing? Is it about advertising?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: I think the way we describe Carol is that essentially,
Speaker 5: first we want to inspire you through content. So the
Speaker 5: content piece is really important, and that could be that
Speaker 5: could be video content. We have a twenty four to
Speaker 5: seven you know, TV channel on both fast and linear.
Speaker 5: Still that could be through you know, any one of
Speaker 5: the brands from a content perspective in writing or audio
Speaker 5: like the Outside podcast. So once you get inspired, then
Speaker 5: we want to basically shift you into activation. So you know,
Speaker 5: you gave a good example of bike rage. We want
Speaker 5: to suggest events that you could go do and then
Speaker 5: get you registered for those events, or we want to
Speaker 5: suggest trails that you could go do and have you
Speaker 5: go do those and then ultimately celebrate that. And celebration
Speaker 5: could come in the form of you know, recording and
Speaker 5: seeing what you did at the finish, it could be
Speaker 5: sharing it with friends and having those people celebrate that.
Speaker 5: And what we ultimately think about that journey is that
Speaker 5: if we can successfully navigate you through that, that you
Speaker 5: kind of keep going back for more. So the metric
Speaker 5: that I use often our goal to be clear like,
Speaker 5: is we want you to spend more time outdoors. Never
Speaker 5: in human history have people spend as much time indoors.
Speaker 5: And we know screens are bad for people. We know
Speaker 5: that there is a mental health crisis, and you know,
Speaker 5: my view is that the outdoor solves that. And so
Speaker 5: our goal through that journey is to get you to
Speaker 5: do those things and ultimately activate and spend more time outdoors.
Speaker 2: Look, I think everybody agrees that we all need to
Speaker 2: be spending more time outdoors. I think about what you're saying,
Speaker 2: Robin and I and Strava just keeps coming to mind.
Speaker 2: One of you guys and a buy Stravay.
Speaker 5: Look, we're partners with them. You know there certainly there's
Speaker 5: interactivity between you know, our platform and their platform.
Speaker 4: You know, what I would say is you know who knows?
Speaker 4: I mean it.
Speaker 5: I think there's still going to be a lot of
Speaker 5: consolidation in the industry. I mean, we're still inquisitive. I
Speaker 5: know others are in the space, and you know, my
Speaker 5: view is that they have a good product. It's pretty
Speaker 5: it's pretty narrow in my mind to outdoor categories. Like
Speaker 5: you know, if you think about something like matt my
Speaker 5: Fitness that records over four hundred and fifty different I
Speaker 5: haveivity activity types. Strawa I think has forty activity types
Speaker 5: they record in and and you know, it's frankly, i'd
Speaker 5: say very concentrated in cycling and running. You know, So
Speaker 5: I I you know, who knows what will happen in
Speaker 5: the future. Our view is that your data, so you
Speaker 5: as an individual user. You own your data and you
Speaker 5: should be able to do whateverever you want with it.
Speaker 5: You know, there are certainly some people in the industry
Speaker 5: that you are trying to create more closed environments.
Speaker 4: And I would say we're very pushing for an open.
Speaker 3: Environment, all right, So not know was that on straw.
Speaker 4: Tricky question? Maybe I'll leave it with them, fair.
Speaker 6: Enough, fair enough.
Speaker 2: I want to get right back to Robin Thurston, the
Speaker 2: founder and CEO of Outside Interactive. He's also the guy
Speaker 2: who created and then sold to under Armour the matt
Speaker 2: My suite of apps. He joins us once again from Boulder, Colorado. Robin,
Speaker 2: and we got a good bit of time left with you.
Speaker 2: There's a lot we want to cover, including the revenue
Speaker 2: model at the new Ish business. Newish, I say, you've
Speaker 2: been there for a few years at this point now,
Speaker 2: but also go back in time a little bit and
Speaker 2: talk a little bit more about under Armour and about
Speaker 2: matt My, just because you did end up joining after
Speaker 2: you sold the company a little over a decade ago
Speaker 2: to under Armour. You were there for a couple of years,
Speaker 2: then you left and went off and did your own
Speaker 2: thing for a few years. What was it like watching
Speaker 2: them work have the produc as an outsider and then
Speaker 2: being an insider once again.
Speaker 5: You know, I would say after I left, and I
Speaker 5: was there about three years after they acquired US and
Speaker 5: we acquired you know a number of other companies to
Speaker 5: put into what was called Connected Fitness. When I left,
Speaker 5: I think, you know, I had this sort of bigger
Speaker 5: vision for you know, more and more content around the subscription,
Speaker 5: and obviously at the time the business had some had
Speaker 5: some challenges, and so you know, I decided it was,
Speaker 5: you know, better to move on, I would say.
Speaker 4: For the first couple of years after.
Speaker 5: I left, I you know, I want to say I
Speaker 5: disconnected a little bit, like I tried not to maybe
Speaker 5: overthink the fact I'd made a decision. I knew I
Speaker 5: had sold the business, and you know, it was no
Speaker 5: longer in my hands, I would say. As they started
Speaker 5: to you know, sell off assets, I started looking at
Speaker 5: a lot more obviously, continue engaging with the checking the product,
Speaker 5: you know, sort of reliability of the product, you know,
Speaker 5: And that's one of the reasons I was so excited
Speaker 5: to get it back, because you know, they had stewarded
Speaker 5: it well. It was you know four point nine stars
Speaker 5: in the app Store for Matt My Run and Matt
Speaker 5: My Rod and Matt My Walk, and so you know,
Speaker 5: I knew it was still in decent shape and growing
Speaker 5: from a user based perspective. I mean, when I sold
Speaker 5: it to under Armour in twenty thirteen, it was twenty
Speaker 5: million users, and when we just bought it back it
Speaker 5: was eighty five million users. So you know, they definitely
Speaker 5: had grown it. It's still growing organically very nicely. This
Speaker 5: is part of the benefit of being you know, Matt
Speaker 5: My Run and Matt My Ride we're in the first
Speaker 5: hundred apps and the app Store in July of two
Speaker 5: thousand and eight, and so you know, it's still benefiting
Speaker 5: from that.
Speaker 4: It's still out the way the algorithms work.
Speaker 5: It still has a lot of organic traffic globally and
Speaker 5: a lot of usage in the app every month. And
Speaker 5: so you know, I think, I'm I'm real like, we're gonna,
Speaker 5: We're gonna. We're relaunching right now challenges, branded challenges, so
Speaker 5: we'll have a lot of brands on the platform, you know,
Speaker 5: doing branded challenges this year in twenty twenty five, and
Speaker 5: we have advertise that's being turned back on for free users.
Speaker 5: You know, and start to monetize it again and really
Speaker 5: get it back to the point of it being a
Speaker 5: very robust you know, uh, not only monetization platform, but
Speaker 5: certainly developing new features. As you all know in the
Speaker 5: finance world, if you're able to generate revenue, it's easier
Speaker 5: to build new features for users.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, yeah, that is true. Hey, why do
Speaker 2: you think you know it was there was a really
Speaker 2: interesting moment with apparel companies and digital. You know, Nike
Speaker 2: had its fuel band you mentioned under Armour and connected Fitness.
Speaker 2: Why do you think the peril companies weren't able to
Speaker 2: make it work?
Speaker 5: You know, I look, I think Nike is still doing
Speaker 5: a good job with you know, I mean, obviously it's
Speaker 5: it's a it's less of a focus than maybe it was.
Speaker 5: But you know, obviously as they have to go and
Speaker 5: improve and go back out into distribution. I think Adidas
Speaker 5: and run Tastic in some of their digital products is
Speaker 5: you know, could compliment a six owns run Keeper, which
Speaker 5: was also one of the first early apps in the
Speaker 5: store when we were there. You know, I think a
Speaker 5: little bit of it is just like you know, mixing.
Speaker 5: You know, I call pure digital companies with you know,
Speaker 5: really shirts and shoes companies and kind of like what
Speaker 5: that means. I mean, I think the most interesting thing
Speaker 5: about digital products is like it's not a it's not
Speaker 5: a one and done, you know, like when you think
Speaker 5: about an app, like you.
Speaker 4: Have to keep investing.
Speaker 5: And you know, I think as maybe some of the
Speaker 5: founders left these companies and there were changes, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe they didn't have the same vision for what it
Speaker 5: could do for whether it be their e commerce businesses
Speaker 5: or you know, how it touches the customer. You know,
Speaker 5: so I think it lost a little focus, and certainly
Speaker 5: as those companies had their own challenges. I mean, even
Speaker 5: look at Lulu, Lemon, Sould, Mirror or sorry shut down
Speaker 5: right right, five hundred million dollar investment, right, it was
Speaker 5: a big number, right, So you know, I think a
Speaker 5: little bit of it's that it's that mixing of you know,
Speaker 5: what I call pure digital and sort of app ecosystems
Speaker 5: with you know, basically apparel and footwear.
Speaker 3: Silly question for you, Robin, but we're Bloomberg and we
Speaker 3: are always curious, how do you make money? Are you profitable?
Speaker 3: Tell us about kind of the metrics of the business
Speaker 3: to understand, you know, or help us better understand the
Speaker 3: viability going forward. And is it all a lot largely
Speaker 3: based on advertising in marketing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think what's interesting about this business specifically, and
Speaker 5: I would say this was sort of a goal from
Speaker 5: the onset, was that when we acquired these businesses, they
Speaker 5: like even the mapping tools like Gaya and trail Forks,
Speaker 5: were relatively you know, they had very small subscriber bases
Speaker 5: and we're not that focused on monetization. They were more
Speaker 5: focused on user growth, user growth, and like with the
Speaker 5: media businesses, they were one hundred percent advertising. Like, they
Speaker 5: didn't have first party log in, they didn't have any personalization,
Speaker 5: they didn't have a membership.
Speaker 4: Tied to the digital piece.
Speaker 5: So when we bought these businesses a little you know five,
Speaker 5: you know, four or five years ago, you know, we
Speaker 5: did twenty twenty three acquisitions during COVID, you know, they
Speaker 5: were mostly advertising. And today we're now at this point,
Speaker 5: we are fifty percent you know, arr subscription or sort
Speaker 5: of SaaS businesses with things like bike Ridge and you
Speaker 5: know now and only fifty percent of the business is advertising.
Speaker 4: So we continue to.
Speaker 3: Dive the mean annual recurring revenue, right, so I make
Speaker 3: sure Okay.
Speaker 5: Annual recurring revenue. My apologies to the audience, it's okay.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: So these are subscription based businesses and we're really relying
Speaker 5: on that for the growth of.
Speaker 4: The business, and so we need the support.
Speaker 5: Of the community and the users to buy those memberships
Speaker 5: because that is how we're going to develop more and
Speaker 5: more features for them. We're relying les and less on advertising,
Speaker 5: although it's an important, very important part of our business,
Speaker 5: and we have incredibly important partners, like I just got
Speaker 5: back from the Defender, the land Rover Defender Awards out
Speaker 5: in California. Land Rover is an incredible partner for us.
Speaker 5: Same with Toyota. We have a number of autos CpG companies.
Speaker 5: But that's the other thing that's happened with us is
Speaker 5: the advertising changed from largely endemic categories. So people like
Speaker 5: north Face and Patagonia and others, and those are still
Speaker 5: partners of our Now fifty percent of the advertising business
Speaker 5: is non endemic. It's it's big autos and other partners
Speaker 5: because we have scale.
Speaker 3: Okay, so are you profitable, are you growing the top?
Speaker 3: What can you share with us about the business man?
Speaker 4: I'll share top I'll share top level with you.
Speaker 5: We're over one hundred million in revenue, and you know,
Speaker 5: we we continue to believe that, you know, we we
Speaker 5: can eventually take the company public and that you know,
Speaker 5: we can do that both organically and from an organic
Speaker 5: growth as well as inorganic growth.
Speaker 3: So what like, so what kind of business is this
Speaker 3: one hundred million in revenue today? Is this multi billions
Speaker 3: of dollars?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: How do you think about the trajectory here?
Speaker 5: Well, I think you know, the one thing that you said,
Speaker 5: Carol is like the some people do perceive this as
Speaker 5: niche I perceive outside very much as general wellness and
Speaker 5: that everybody needs something in our ecosystem from a wellness perspective.
Speaker 5: And so you know, the addressable market for that, in
Speaker 5: my mind is billions of people. You know, today we
Speaker 5: touch about three hundred million unique people annually through all
Speaker 5: the distribution channels.
Speaker 4: And all the services. You know.
Speaker 5: My view is that, you know, in the future, we
Speaker 5: should be able to convert something on the magnitude of
Speaker 5: you know, one to five percent of those people annually
Speaker 5: into membership. And so you know, you talk about a
Speaker 5: ten plus million member business. I mean that's a that's
Speaker 5: a big, multi billion dollar company.
Speaker 3: Is it sticky for you?
Speaker 7: Tim steneviek Oh bike Ridge, Oh, bike Ridge is like yeah,
Speaker 7: if you're gonna race in a bike race, like a
Speaker 7: cycle cross race in the Northeast, and I assume it's
Speaker 7: like this all all over for USA cycling events, bike
Speaker 7: Ridge is.
Speaker 2: The only place to do it, okay. And it is
Speaker 2: a great product. It's easy to use, and it saves
Speaker 2: my information, and it's fair and it shows me the
Speaker 2: races that are close.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just need it to include childcare, which it doesn't
Speaker 2: do yet, so I would appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Right, there's a new revenue stream, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you can make the little kids cross race,
Speaker 2: you know needs you know, yeah, you know what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about. So I'm wondering about other areas of business
Speaker 2: that you want to get into if like these twenty
Speaker 2: five brands, you said you're still inquisitive, But is there
Speaker 2: an area that you're not playing in right now that
Speaker 2: you want to plan?
Speaker 4: You know, I think the areas.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, one one area on our AD
Speaker 5: business that's our second largest AD business is travel, so
Speaker 5: we work with a lot of travel companies.
Speaker 4: I mean, one of the things people come to.
Speaker 5: Outside for is like what to go do right, like
Speaker 5: whether that's an event or that's a place to go.
Speaker 5: I mean we write two thousand plus pieces a year
Speaker 5: of content that are related to like you know, roundups
Speaker 5: of like top ten hikes in North America, top ten
Speaker 5: surf towns, top ten you know, kayaking, places to go,
Speaker 5: you know, things like that, And so travel is a
Speaker 5: really big part of our business. And I think travel
Speaker 5: is an area where I think we can you know,
Speaker 5: if you think about bike ridge, I think travel is
Speaker 5: an area where we can do a lot more for
Speaker 5: the customer.
Speaker 4: I think we can help in that journey.
Speaker 3: So akin to like Expedia or an Airbnb or like
Speaker 3: like where kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's different.
Speaker 5: It's different because a lot of those companies do not
Speaker 5: focus on you know what I call the sort of
Speaker 5: the details around Like think about a ski vacation, Carol,
Speaker 5: Like you're not just interested in the hotel you're going
Speaker 5: to stay in or the flight, You're interested in the
Speaker 5: ski instructor, the ski rentals, the ski passes, like you know,
Speaker 5: the runs, like what you know when you're going to ski.
Speaker 5: So like I think in adventure travel, what's different is
Speaker 5: the details, Like if if you know I'm using example,
Speaker 5: if if you were going to go let's say you
Speaker 5: were going to go do a bike race, but you
Speaker 5: didn't want to take your bike. Where do you rent
Speaker 5: the bike?
Speaker 4: Where?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: What's the best?
Speaker 6: Hell?
Speaker 3: Stay?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And so I think that's what's really different about what
Speaker 5: you know, the opportunity is for outside and travel is
Speaker 5: that we can really get into the details.
Speaker 3: All I know is we're ready, right for what?
Speaker 2: Ready to get back to Boulder at full cycle and
Speaker 2: do a ride up Gold Hill. That's what I'm ready
Speaker 2: to do. This is a man who's done any time.
Speaker 5: You want, anytime you want. You know what you love
Speaker 5: me know when you're coming out, I'll take you the
Speaker 5: Gold Hill.
Speaker 2: Sounds good. I really appreciate it. Robin. Nice to check
Speaker 2: in with you. Robin Thurston, founder and CEO of Outside Interactive.
Speaker 2: They've got the map, my uh suite of apps, they
Speaker 2: got Warren Miller film Tour, They've got Outside Magazine. That's
Speaker 2: just a couple love it.
Speaker 6: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's Thanksgiving, but it's also about this time
Speaker 2: that people start to think about their goals for the
Speaker 2: forthcoming year. In twenty twenty four, about thirty percent of
Speaker 2: Americans said they made at least one New Year's resolution.
Speaker 2: This is according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Well,
Speaker 2: we all know that just because you set a goal,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean you stick to it. A month into
Speaker 2: the new year, more than a quarter of people who
Speaker 2: made at least one New Year's resolution say that they've
Speaker 2: only kept some of them. Well, thirteen percent say they
Speaker 2: didn't keep any of their resolution. This is also a
Speaker 2: quarding to Pew. They did this at the end of January.
Speaker 2: So depressing, right, that's how it went for twenty twenty four. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's hard to do this stuff.
Speaker 3: We have an next guest, though, who is into looking
Speaker 3: at kind of how you achieve goals and says that
Speaker 3: there's actually a science to settling and achieving those goals.
Speaker 3: She's Caroline Adams Miller. She's a psychologist and executive coach,
Speaker 3: author of many books, including her most recent Big Goals,
Speaker 3: The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your
Speaker 3: Best Life. She joins us from Delaware. All right, Caroline,
Speaker 3: help us. How can we set big goals? How can
Speaker 3: we get there? How can we create a really good
Speaker 3: life and have balance and enjoy kind of enjoy the journey.
Speaker 6: Well, it's so interesting. First of all, hello, I'm not
Speaker 6: a psychologist. I have to say I'm an applied positive psychologist,
Speaker 6: so it's a protected term. I want to be really
Speaker 6: careful about that. But thank you for having me, because
Speaker 6: goal setting is a huge topic. And of all places
Speaker 6: I learned about the science of goal setting when I
Speaker 6: went back to school at midlife, went to the University
Speaker 6: of Pennsylvania in their first ever Masters of Applied Positive
Speaker 6: Psychology program, the Science of Happiness, and that's where I'd
Speaker 6: learned for the first time. After thinking I understood goal setting,
Speaker 6: I learned for the first time there is a science.
Speaker 6: It's the number one ranked theory and management. It's called
Speaker 6: goal setting theory. It's by Lock and Latham. And my
Speaker 6: capstone that year was about the connection between the science
Speaker 6: of goal setting and the science of happiness, because we
Speaker 6: now know that not only is there a science to
Speaker 6: goal setting that is kind of stuck in our academia
Speaker 6: that the mass market needs, but all success in all
Speaker 6: goals across all sectors of life is preceded by being
Speaker 6: happy first. And so you can't talk about goal setting
Speaker 6: without also talking about the science of emotional flourishing, so
Speaker 6: I connected those in my book Creating Your Best Life,
Speaker 6: came out fifteen years ago, but this year right now,
Speaker 6: I'm completely committed to bringing the science Lock and Lath
Speaker 6: them science of goal setting to the world in the
Speaker 6: book Big Goals, because we really need it. We're still
Speaker 6: running on fume zombie theories like smart goals or the
Speaker 6: law of attraction, just a bunch of urban legends, and
Speaker 6: we need the science. And it's just like after the
Speaker 6: bubonic plague in the Middle Ages, we have to go
Speaker 6: evidence based in everything if we're going to survive and thrive.
Speaker 3: Listen, I can go to a Barnes and Noble and
Speaker 3: there's lots of self help books. So tell me about
Speaker 3: this one. You talk about the science of goal setting.
Speaker 3: Tell me what we need to do so that we
Speaker 3: can kind of actually get to that place we want
Speaker 3: to be super happy.
Speaker 6: Sure, well, there are a lot of books on goal setting.
Speaker 6: It's a very evergreen topic, but to my great surprise,
Speaker 6: most people do not know there's a science to it.
Speaker 6: So that's where my book is really different, and it's
Speaker 6: goal setting theory Lock and Latham. I've added on six
Speaker 6: steps on top of that, the bridge methodology. It's in
Speaker 6: the business section. I just went into Barnes and Noble
Speaker 6: the other day, so it's not in self help. But
Speaker 6: we all set goals. The thing is we assume we
Speaker 6: know how to do it because we're all so busy
Speaker 6: doing different things in our lives. So the science is
Speaker 6: very simple. And what Lock and Latham found in this
Speaker 6: number one ranked management theory of seventy three theories never
Speaker 6: had a replication crisis that goals are divided into two buckets.
Speaker 6: Start there. A learning goal is when you're adding skills
Speaker 6: or knowledge in order to be able to accomplish that goal,
Speaker 6: and then performance goals are like checklists and recipes. You've
Speaker 6: done it before, you know what it takes to be excellent.
Speaker 6: The problem is too many people skip the learning part
Speaker 6: go immediately to thinking they have to come up with
Speaker 6: a great out come soon. Maybe it's expected of them.
Speaker 6: But when you mix them up, you get the greatest
Speaker 6: business disasters in history. And I'll just name a few.
Speaker 6: Ocean gates, titaned submersible. They had a learning goal to
Speaker 6: create this thing, but they turned it into a performance
Speaker 6: goal to make money Boeing seven thirty seven max same thing,
Speaker 6: the Ford pinto, same thing. Never skip the learning process
Speaker 6: because that's when people are curious and engaged in getting
Speaker 6: it right before they're trying to have a specific outcome.
Speaker 6: So that's step number one. When you're pursuing goals, know
Speaker 6: the science.
Speaker 2: Do you see any of those? Those are the results?
Speaker 2: Like we can say in hindsight, yes, the seven thirty
Speaker 2: seven Max disaster, the Titan submersible, the Ford Pinto. Do
Speaker 2: you see any of these? This happening in real time
Speaker 2: right now when you look across the business landscape where
Speaker 2: this is just oh everywhere.
Speaker 6: Well, I coach CEOs all over the world. I coach
Speaker 6: them in space and technology and artificial intelligence, and many
Speaker 6: of them have let's say, investors and boards of rectors
Speaker 6: who are insisting that they three x or five x
Speaker 6: or ten x their results in a year or two
Speaker 6: years or three years to get their money back. And
Speaker 6: I'm constantly explaining to boards of directors and CEOs, what
Speaker 6: got you here may not get you there. You have
Speaker 6: to understand goal setting theory, because if you know it,
Speaker 6: you set goals correctly, they are well formed from the outset,
Speaker 6: and then it can cascade down. So you cannot skip
Speaker 6: the learning step when you do, you get people cutting corners.
Speaker 6: You get something I call fo grit. You know where
Speaker 6: you're faking the fact that you've done something hard. So
Speaker 6: it's it's everywhere, truly, it's everywhere. This is not the.
Speaker 2: Group projects in college. They spent so much time working
Speaker 2: on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, does it have to be hard to be
Speaker 3: productive and good?
Speaker 6: No? It does not. But what Lock and Latham said
Speaker 6: is that if you're looking for the best possible outcome,
Speaker 6: you want to be challenging and specific. So I always
Speaker 6: illustrated by putting my hand out and pass your fingertips.
Speaker 6: The problem is I raised my three great adult children
Speaker 6: during the self esteem parenting movement, where we watered down
Speaker 6: the grades and everyone was a winner and you couldn't.
Speaker 3: Can I just tell you not everybody?
Speaker 2: Have we moved beyond that? So have we moved beyond that?
Speaker 6: I don't know. I mean inching that way. I'm not
Speaker 6: going to say yes, because the average grade where I
Speaker 6: went to college Harvard is an a minus. And I
Speaker 6: can tell you I didn't do nothing but a minus
Speaker 6: work there, and neither do my friends. So the great
Speaker 6: inflation has taken away the specialness of doing great work.
Speaker 6: So Consequently, the Millennials and sometimes Gen X, they get
Speaker 6: into the workplace and no one's ever given them real
Speaker 6: honest feedback. And that's hard to hear the first time.
Speaker 6: I want to quickly say, the adults in their lives
Speaker 6: did it to them. We're the ones who dumbed down
Speaker 6: the playgrounds. We're the ones who ban sledding because you
Speaker 6: could get hurt. I mean, that's on the adults. What
Speaker 6: I do think is important is everyone has a dream
Speaker 6: come and he have goals. And I go all over
Speaker 6: the world talking about this and working with leaders, and
Speaker 6: I have to say, fewer than five percent of the
Speaker 6: people I work with have ever heard that there's a
Speaker 6: science to goal setting goal setting theory.
Speaker 3: So I got to ask you just got about a
Speaker 3: minute and a half left, Tim and I do a
Speaker 3: pretty good job. I'm going to say that. I'm just
Speaker 3: going to lay it out.
Speaker 2: I think we do a really cal Thank you, Carol.
Speaker 1: We do we do?
Speaker 3: How can we be better?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 6: How do?
Speaker 3: What's what would you say is our first step? We
Speaker 3: have to in terms of setting out goals and being better.
Speaker 6: In what we're doing?
Speaker 3: What do we do we.
Speaker 6: Have to?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, okay, sorry, He keeps.
Speaker 3: Trying, but you know, but no, but so what? So
Speaker 3: give us one one. Our big first step just got
Speaker 3: about a minute.
Speaker 6: Big first step is have a goal. But I have
Speaker 6: to say I combined all the research, all the researchers
Speaker 6: in this one book, big goal. So I'm just going
Speaker 6: to say, go, go get the book. Everything you need
Speaker 6: is in there. But start.
Speaker 3: Oh come on, Caroline, give me thirty seconds of a tip.
Speaker 3: We know you want us to get the book. First step,
Speaker 3: first setting, yeah, pardon no, first step, yeah yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: first step.
Speaker 6: Break it into a learning goal or performance goal, and
Speaker 6: then check is it your goal or not? Then look around?
Speaker 6: Are you brainstorming the right way? What's new? Who's doing
Speaker 6: it better than you? What's artificial intelligence doing? Who wants
Speaker 6: you to succeed? Who needs to stay out of your life?
Speaker 6: What kind of investments do you have to make? Do
Speaker 6: you have noise and bias in your decision making process?
Speaker 6: Do you have good grit? Do you have humility? Do
Speaker 6: you have patience? Passion? And do you have a record
Speaker 6: board standard for your outcome? So? How's that?
Speaker 3: That's great? Thank you so much. I wish we had
Speaker 3: more time, but this is really fun. Caroline, Adams Miller.
Speaker 3: Her new book is Big Goals, The Science of setting them,
Speaker 3: achieving them, and creating your best life. You gotta work
Speaker 3: on that faux grit.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so good. That's so good.