Dorie Clark: Playing The Long Game

My guest this week is Dorie Clark, a consultant and keynote speaker, who teaches executive education at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School, and she is the author of "The Long Game," "Entrepreneurial You," and "Stand Out." A frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, she consults and speaks for clients including Google, Microsoft, and the World Bank.

Dorie's latest book "The Long Game" caught my attention because it touches on themes such as compounding, and not in the traditional financial sense, but compounding of expertise, of brand and of content. It also explores why it is so important and also so hard to play the long game, and how to stay in the game despite the inevitable challenges. We also talk about her business model and how it has evolved over the years. 

What We Cover: 

- The Long Game framework for strategic thinking in business and life

- What gets in the way of the Long Game and why so few people apply it

- The power of compounding and why it's so hard to understand it on a visceral level

- What "choosing to to be bad" means and how it affects the Long Game

- How to "optimise for interesting" in today's fast-changing world

Key Takeaways and Learnings: 

- There is a consensus that strategic thinking is important, yet there is a big gap in implementation and very few people apply it despite the obvious benefits of playing the Long Game

- Preconditions for playing the Long Game are creating more whitespace for strategic thinking, focusing on the right goals and keeping the faith - cultivating persistence and resilience 

- In our culture, there is a polarity between optimising for money and optimising for passion. Optimising for interesting is a third way that is kinder and healthier for our life and business paths

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: 

- "The Long Game: How to be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World" by Dorie Clark https://dorieclark.com/longgame/ 

- Dorie Clark's website https://dorieclark.com/  

- The Long Game Free Self-Assessment https://dorieclark.com/thelonggame/ 

- Recognized Expert™ Course by Dorie Clark https://learn.dorieclark.com/courses/expert 

- The Long Now Foundation https://longnow.org/ 

- "The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World" by Roman Krznaric https://www.romankrznaric.com/good-ancestor 

- "Uncommon Service" by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss http://uncommonservice.com/ 

- "Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain" by Pete Egoscue https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675597/pain-free-revised-and-updated-second-edition-by-pete-egoscue/ 

- The Weekly Dish by Andrew Sullivan on Substack