066 The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World with Dorie Clark

“No one is going to give you that time (to think and learn). We have to take it, carve it out, be extraordinarily vigilant about guarding it. Otherwise, we get swept away in the day-to-day.” – Dorie Clark

Aaand we’re back in session! Our new episode is with Dorie Clark, “How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World.”

Dorie is a Columbia and Duke university business professor, an HBR author, one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world (Thinkers50), and is rated the #1 Communication Coach in the world (Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Award). Today’s episode is not one to miss!

Dorie’s latest book, “The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World” launched this week, and we get the inside track on how you can make a life-changing breakthrough. We also chat about Dorie’s own career as a people leader, and the lessons she learned along the way.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How being seriously open to learning can change your trajectory
  • Why “thinking in waves” makes sense in a fast-paced world
  • How to create and protect your time, so you can take your career and life to the next level (hat tip to Dave Crenshaw and Paul Graham!)
  • Dorie’s biggest lesson as a first-time leader, and more!

Click that play button to listen! Don’t forget to subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts!

Playing The Long Game

I think there’s something really admirable about people who play the long game. True respect is owed to people who are willing to make the sacrifice of doing the work and putting in the effort even when there’s no instant gratification. You can actually make a significant gap between you and your competitors when you do this, but only very few are willing to make that journey.

It’s Okay To Not Know Everything

So often as adults, we get used to being really proficient at things. It becomes very rare, as you get older, to be bad at something that we think of as important to who we are.

For any of us who are in the professional life, if you’re trying to move up the ladder, you don’t really want to say, “I don’t know how to be a leader,” or, “I’m not so good at communicating.” But the truth is there is still a lot to learn.

So I think that being open to that fact and accepting that it’s okay to continue learning is powerful and will help you in the long run.

The Value of Long-Term Thinking

We need to be setting long-term goals because whether or not we end up with those goals, you want to be directionally correct in your course. So you’d want to be aiming towards something because that process of orienting yourself to it will lead you closer to what you want and in a better place than you would’ve been if you had totally left it to chance in a jellyfish fashion.

Links and Resources

Connect with Dorie: LinkedIn, Website, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

The Long Game by Dorie Clark (book)

’The Long Game’ Strategic Thinking Self-Assessment