The Gunn Show - 10.7.24
A weekend update and some shares.
Hi Everyone!
Happy Sunday, and welcome back to The Gunn Show. Hope you all had a fantastic week as always.
This past one was a sentimental one on our end for a couple of reasons. First, Brooklyn and I had our pregnancy photo-shoot in Dallas last weekend and the pictures turned out better than we could have hoped. It’s been an exciting journey so far and we are looking forward to being able to look back on these as we get further down the road. January can’t come soon enough! Here are a couple of our favorites:
To top off the week, we flew to Nashville on Friday for a family & friend filled weekend with a couple of big events as Brooklyn’s brother Cory proposed to his now-fiancé Rylee (she said yes!) and Sunday was the ‘girls-only’ edition of Baby G’s baby shower. As I’ve written about here before, these types of experiences with everyone in the same place are few and far between for us, helping make them extra special. It is always a lot for us to squeeze into but a few days but we know the long-term memories far outweigh any of the short term stress and can’t wait for the next time for us all to get back together again.
Unfortunately, all of this means that there was a limited amount of time this weekend to put finger to keyboard. So in lieu of some in depth thoughts this week, I’ll instead point you back to the piece I published on Tuesday of this week in the event you missed it, which centers around a mental model I use in thinking about skill development, hiring, and team building called ‘Talent Stacks’. I’d put it up there for one of my favorite pieces I’ve written to date, so I’d love it if you’d give it a read and pass along any thoughts you may have. You can find it by clicking here.
Lastly, I’ve included a couple of shares that I found especially interesting this week. Hope you enjoy and let me know if any catch your eye specifically, or if you have something you’ve come across yourself that you think others need to see.
Talk next week.
- CG
Reading
Nick Saban on Transformational vs. Transactional Coaching (~3 min)
In my eyes, Saban’s retirement prior to the 2024 college football season was a huge boon to the sport for a couple of reasons. First and foremost as a Volunteer fan, no longer do we have to worry about him patrolling the sidelines in crimson and white intent on ruining any chances of the opposition leaving with a smile on their face after a Saturday mixup with the Tide. That responsibility now falls on Kaelen DeBoer, and for as impressive as the Tide were against Georgia two weeks ago the Vanderbilt stunner on Saturday was unlike anything we saw with a Saban coached team for the last two decades. But while a more fallible Bama team is certainly a positive for all of us Tide haters across the sport, there is an even bigger win that has come out of Saban’s retirement from the sidelines and subsequent shift to the broadcast desk: we now get to see in the open what his players and coaches saw in the locker rooms for countless games and speeches. The insight he has been providing on College Gameday throughout the course of the year has been fascinating to listen to, and I thought this take on the difference between “transformational and transactional coaching” to be especially good. Worth taking 3 minutes of your day to give it a listen.
Make the Complex Simple and Adapt on the Fly: How Kevin O’Connell Leads Electric Vikings (~12 min)
The Minnesota Vikings have been one of the most exciting stories in the NFL with having jumped out to a 5-0 record to start the 2024 season. But while ‘24 has certainly been impressive, I’ve been fascinated by what they’ve been able to accomplish dating back to 2022 when they won 13 games, with 11 of those wins coming by one score. The Vikings have had a tumultuous couple years of injuries and both player/staff turnover, but even amidst all of that chaos the steadying and adaptable force of Kevin O’Connell has kept them on track for success. This was a great read into the ‘how’ behind the scenes that provides some important lessons on the value of leadership in times of chaos when things are not going to plan.
The Intelligence Age by Sam Altman (~5 min)
This was a powerful, quick read from OpenAI’s founder and leader Sam Altman on how humans and AI will interact into the future to create prosperity for society. I love being able to get a behind the scenes look into the minds of the people impacting the future of the planet, and found Sam’s perspective on the power of technology to be especially insightful. Two of my favorite lines from the piece:
Technology brought us from the Stone Age to the Agricultural Age and then to the Industrial Age. From here, the path to the Intelligence Age is paved with compute, energy, and human will.
I believe the future is going to be so bright that no one can do it justice by trying to write about it now; a defining characteristic of the Intelligence Age will be massive prosperity.
