WonderTour

Hi, welcome back to Lead Wisely by Wunder Tour.

We are wrapping up our series on villains and the leadership lessons we can learn from
them and the leadership lessons we can learn about how to not become them.

This is our second episode on the Amazon Prime series, The Rings of Power, and we're
talking, of course, about Sauron, the opponent in the Lord of the Rings mythology.

in his personas in the first season as Halbrand the human and his second season as Annatar
the elven emissary.

And last episode we talked a little bit about his leadership style and we saw several
people getting led astray by his powerful influence.

And so today we're going to start off with a tough question about leadership.

How do we avoid being led astray by the Saurons of the world?

Assuming you could potentially fall into the trap.

being a Celebrimbor or a Caladrial.

How do you not fall into that trap?

Brian you're telling me I'm capable of falling prey to the deceiver Sauron?

Yeah I think I've...

Yeah...

there.

I'm right on the edge.

I think I've done that before a few times.

Yeah.

So I think we first off, we got to have a short conversation about Sauron and kind of his
failure modes in order to be able to discuss this because where, what is it in Sauron's

character that has him doing this, that has him leading people astray because that's the
answer.

And I think Galadriel comes to a little bit of an answer about this in the second season.

But first off, Sauron, what does he want?

He's not, it's not very obvious, I think, based on everything we've seen so far, all the
Lord of the Rings lore, that what he wants is to become a god.

He is a kind of a minor god that wants his, you he wants to be Morgoth, but he wants to be
greater than Morgoth.

Morgoth's whole thing is that Illuvatar, the creator god, is a god of light basically that
wants to bring light to this whole world and Morgoth is hiding in darkness and he's

leveraging darkness and he's doing it to undermine the creator god because he wants to be
on that level.

And I think that's what we see with Sauron.

So when we think about that, that's his prime goal.

He wants to undermine the true reality of things and instate his own reality instead.

And so that's what we see his superpowers, right?

He has this ability to form illusions in season two.

He can trick people and deceive them into seeing things the way they want to see them and
the way he wants them to see things instead of the way the world actually is.

He can trick people and deceive them into seeing things the way they want to see them and
the way he wants them to see things instead of the way the world actually is.

we see Calabrimbor get tricked by not checking his reality.

He's stuck up in this tower.

And he's trapped up there for days, weeks.

I don't know how long he's up there, but it's a long time.

And he's not leaving.

He's just become so fixated on something that he can't tell what's happening outside of
him.

So when you talk about how do we avoid becoming blind, I mean, it has a lot to do with
understanding actual reality.

Like it's one thing to sit and talk about, the world should be better and we should
implement the, know, somebody should implement these policies.

Like it's one thing to sit and talk about, the world should be better and we should
implement the, know, somebody should implement these policies.

It should be this way and not that way.

It's another thing entirely to actually go see the impact of those things, go understand
how people are experiencing the world who are going through the challenges that we're

talking about.

That is, I think what Galadriel starts to learn.

And obviously it's partly this Elven ring that she's wearing that helps her to pierce
through Sauron's

Deceptions that he had previously been using as Hallibrand to stop her but once she
Realizes, I think he's going back to what you said when you asked me the question Brian

The starting point is the realization that we're all caliber and bore that we all are
Galadriel and that we are susceptible that isn't that how Galadriel challenges his

The starting point is the realization that we're all caliber and bore that we all are
Galadriel and that we are susceptible that isn't that how Galadriel challenges his

deceptions she's constantly second-guessing herself and saying wait a minute am I falling
for it again am I

Is this actually a worthy mission or am I once again in it for myself trying to vindicate
my mission, trying to conquer the orcs because they killed my brother for Narfin?

Okay, so I think that I really like something you said in there that as a lesson,
Galadriel doesn't, she doesn't avoid falling into the trap because she's really smart or

because she has some really good skill.

She doesn't have it, avoid falling into the trap because somebody pointed it out to her.

She avoids falling into the trap because she remembers the last time she fell into the
trap.

She learns from experience, right?

She learns from experience.

She internalizes like, I am vulnerable to this.

I saw the world the way I wanted it to be rather than the way it was.

And that led me into a really bad place.

And so I'm gonna try really hard not to do that again.

And I think that's the thing, right?

Is this the...

recognizing, like we said, that you could be gladrile, that you could be Killa Bribor,
that you could be so focused on your own goals and your own little motivations that you

sort of forget to pick your head up and look around.

Remembering to recognize that is the thing that we see people failing at, but also that is
available to all of us at any time.

and I want to take it one step further because what you just said there is brilliant,
Brian.

And she tells us at the end in episode eight of season two what she learned.

And it's like the most quotable thing in the whole episode.

You know, we don't overcome the darkness by strength.

The darkness is overcome by the light.

That's what she recognizes the whole time.

She's trying to fight hard to overcome this darkness.

And she realizes the futility of it, that all of her effort.

that she's putting in actually resulted in the darkness gaining ground.

they, we have it, they say it multiple times in the last episode, I think, but you have
this realization that to defeat the darkness, the answer is to stay close to the light.

they, we have it, they say it multiple times in the last episode, I think, but you have
this realization that to defeat the darkness, the answer is to stay close to the light.

And it's Wondertor, so we're not too prescriptive on worldview on here, but we are going
to tell you what the Lord of the Rings is saying.

And it's Wondertor, so we're not too prescriptive on worldview on here, but we are going
to tell you what the Lord of the Rings is saying.

And the Lord of the Rings is saying to defeat the darkness, the answer is to stay close to
the light because I am an unreliable human.

in the story, how do I stay close to the light of Valar because that is what keeps me
sane.

That is what keeps me from falling to the darkness.

All right, let's hit the intro and then we'll come back and talk more about what staying
close to the light looks like.

So, hi, I'm Brian Lutwell.

And we are on a journey to lead wisely, to become better leaders by touring fantastic
worlds and inspiring lore by going on a Wander Tour.

we connect leadership concepts to story context because it sticks to our brains better.

You can find out more at wondertourpodcast.com or on YouTube by looking up Lead Wisely,
all one word.

And this is one of our flavors of, you know, leaning into the light, right?

Is that look at the lessons, look at the failure modes, look at the stories, tell
yourself, you know, we're always telling ourselves stories.

You know, that's one of the reasons that Wondertour works for me.

to help me think about how to navigate my life, how to think about how to navigate
leadership challenges is because I frame things in terms of stories.

it's easy to imagine myself as a character.

It's easy to imagine myself as a, in some crazy exaggerated version of my reality.

Like fortunately I've never been, you know, I've never been in Mordor when the mountain
blows up and I've had to flee from the orcs.

my life experience has not been that dramatic, right?

But I have absolutely been in the...

Galadriel frame of mind where I desperately needed an ally and where nobody was helping me
solve the problem that I wanted to solve.

And I was a little bit vulnerable to poor advice, right?

Or to seeing people from the way that I wanted them to be.

I've definitely super definitely been Calibre and Bar where I was so excited about making
some technology thing that I wasn't super focused on the context or the impact or the ways

It's very effective.

When we can pull it off.

Yeah, exactly.

hard.

It's really hard, right?

We want to tell ourselves the story.

We want to tell ourselves the story.

The failure motive I really like stories is that I'm always crafting things into the story
that I want to see, right?

And so letting go of that a little bit and like, yeah, I was wrong that other time.

I might be wrong this time.

Let me just question it a little bit.

Let me take a step back.

Let me look at it from a different angle.

Let me ask for a second opinion.

Let me listen to people that are trying to give me advice.

Like we see all those examples too, where their, know, Galadriel could have been maybe a
little more focused on the light, right?

She was right about the risks.

She's right about the danger, but she may not have been right about the correct way to
solve it was, you know, by, by battering it with swords.

Yeah, and who do we see who probably is the best example of sticking close to the light?

You know, our Obi-Wan character in the entire Lord of the Rings series, Elrond.

He is consistently questioning what is reality, making sure that he's staying as close to
the light of the Valar as possible.

He's ever vigilant for the return of evil.

He is not going to even let his relationship with others, with Galadriel or Gil-Galad or
anybody

get in the way of the overall mission, he just continuously centers himself.

And that doesn't mean he's always right, because he is wrong in a way about the rings.

He's right to be skeptical, but he ends up realizing the error of his ways when he sees
the true reality, right?

says, he sees that the elves are in a dire spot and the rings actually were a gift from
the Valar to protect them in this moment.

that these rings are not corrupted and they can be leveraged.

And that's the founding of Rivendell that we see at the end of episode eight, which is
super, super cool.

And obviously also he saves Galadriel with that wisdom.

Right.

Well, so yeah, that's a good way.

We hadn't said this out loud, I think, when we talked in the pre-show, but the...

Elrond is the counter example of leadership styles to Sauron, not because he's so
different.

He actually is really similar in that he, makes really genuine connections with his
friends, with Durin, with Galadriel, you know, he's with, with Celebrimbor.

Like he makes genuine connections with people.

He's very sensitive to supporting them in their goals.

Like those things are, he actually has in common with Sauron.

The thing that's different is that he doesn't encourage them to lean into their worst
impulses.

And he's willing to change his opinions.

He's willing to change his goals on the medium level to achieve the, you know, the kind of
higher level flourishing for all.

Where Sauron is never going to abandon like, you're right, Goliadril, we should wipe out
the Orcs.

Like he's never going to abandon his long-term goals in favor of like, I was mistaken and
Goliadril, you've got a good point.

Elrond's willing to learn from his mistakes.

He's willing to learn from new information.

He's willing to adapt his, you know, his behaviors, but he still has this encouraging
flourishing in his friends and more broadly in the world is his sort of unswerving

dedication.

And so, yeah, the way that the way that it was presented at this series, he's very much
the counter example of leadership to Sauron where the reason that Sauron is effective is

when he's like Elrond.

And the reason that we don't want to be Sauron is when he's not like Elrond.

Yeah, yeah.

And I just want to nerd out a little bit about this because Tolkien makes this so complex
and it's why it's one of the great universes ever created.

But there's not one chosen one.

This isn't as simple as Star Wars.

Star Wars was meant to be simple.

This is not meant to be simple.

This is meant to be this long running universe of many stories that through repetition and
variation teach us these mythological truth.

you know, through myths, basically truths about the universe.

And it's brilliant in that way.

And so just for those who are tuning into the rings of power, but aren't super huge Lord
of the Rings nerds, they can learn out a little bit.

mean, Elrond is kind of like this royal bloodline of people in this universe.

Like he is a child of Elwing who Elwing is this.

Elwing is a child of Baron and Luthien, which is one of the great stories in the
Silmarillion.

But either way, he's kind of like a mix of high elf bloodline with the high man bloodline
with the Maya, which is like what Sauron is a lower god bloodline as well.

And so with Luthien, so he's kind of this like blending of the best of all of the
different races in this world.

And so it makes sense that Elrond kind of carries some of the wisdom of each race.

he is the, in a way he's, he is very much the fulfillment of the intent of Eluvatar's
wisdom in the world.

He acts like Eluvatar's point in creating these beings is that they would act wisely.

You know, like we talk about on lead wisely.

wants them to lead wisely in creating this world and

Sauron is kind of the embodiment of that and it's cool that you recognize that he's the
inverse of Sauron in that way.

Sauron has the skills that were given to him also when he was created by Illuvatar, but he
has allowed them to be twisted.

Right.

You know, that's, we talk a lot about the heroic characters, the magnanimous leaders in a
lot of the stories that we like.

A lot of these movies we watch are, we call them the interlopers, the people that cross
between worlds, that can carry messages between worlds, that can interpret the world in

different viewpoints and help people reframe themselves.

And Elrond is very much that, right?

He's the one that we see as the emissary to the dwarves.

And he's not just like trying to convince him to do something for his own reasons.

He's like genuinely friends with Durin and genuinely wants to...

you know, wants the best for his friend, right?

And he's trying to find the synergy in the business term, right?

Like he's trying to find the thing that will benefit both of them.

But he's very much the interloper character.

He's always carrying messages between people.

He's always the diplomat.

He's always like trying to figure out how to negotiate things.

And so that alternate view of leading with influence is displayed really well with Elrond,
where Sauron's view of leading with influence is for his own purposes, encouraging the

worst.

behaviors, the worst attributes of others.

And Elrond is leading with influence, encouraging the best attributes of others, but also
trying to lean into, you know, their future benefits, to creating a better future that is

more inclusive.

And...

I think you're right.

This is a story that this is not a story about simplicity.

This is a story about complexity.

It's a story about the, you know, not just good versus evil, you know, and not that order
is necessarily correct or disorder is necessarily evil, but that there's the tension

between the two of those and navigating those with sympathy is the magnanimous leader that
we see.

And we see a lot of the other leaders struggling with this, right?

The, the, the, queen of the new Minoreans.

She's very sympathetic.

She's got people's best interests at heart.

The King of the Elves, on and off, right?

He's very orderly.

This is the way we do things around here, right?

And so he's not terribly sympathetic to the people around him, right?

He has to, it takes a lot for him to get off of Top Dead Center.

So, but Elrond is, Elrond, even when he's self-doubting, is walking that line very
skillfully.

Yeah, he's the best of the people that we come across and he would be the magnanimous
leader.

Yeah, he's the best of the people that we come across and he would be the magnanimous
leader.

suspect Brian, we're going to need to do a whole nother episode on Elrond or series of
episodes on Elrond now that we've had this conversation.

season three, he's obviously breaking out.

we're, yeah, we're gonna, we'll come back to that one.

So, but let's talk a little bit about, let's get to the mountaintop here.

So now that we've got this challenge of there are magnanimous leaders in the world, we
hope, who are, have our best interests at heart.

There are leaders who behave very similarly, who work through influence, who play on our
desires, who paint beautiful pictures of the future, who may not have our best interests

at heart.

How do we tell the difference?

How do we not fall into the trap that Kelle Brimbor falls into of becoming increasingly,
increasingly isolated and oblivious?

How do we not fall into the trap that Kelle Brimbor falls into of becoming increasingly,
increasingly isolated and oblivious?

Yeah, and they try to tell that story a little bit.

And that's our mountaintop moment is when Celebrimbor breaks out of this shadow realm,
this illusion that Sauron has him in at the top of the tower.

We get this pattern.

They really did a good job with the storytelling and the even the cinematography is pretty
good in this show.

They really did a good job with the storytelling and the even the cinematography is pretty
good in this show.

We didn't even get to that part, Brian, yet, but truly one of the best TV show seasons
we've seen in years.

But you get this this patterning of the mouse and you as the audience are trying to figure
out like, OK, why do they keep showing us?

Celebrim were looking at this little mouse and then he ends up having the moment where
Sauron comes up to the top of the tower.

And it's of course asking him about the nine rings for men again.

And he's like, just look at it.

Just look at the mouse.

And he's kind of playing into this character that

Sauron is building him into, he's trying to turn him into this crazy person, especially
from the perspective of all of the constituents of his city.

And he's like, no, there's a pattern to it.

There's a pattern to it.

He's like, there's something wrong with this reality.

It's just repeating itself and the candles haven't burned down.

The way...

And then he's able to finally tear back the veil and he sees the burning and the
destruction outside and it destroys him.

And Brian, when I've been there before as a calabrian bore, where I was just leaving the
illusion up like everything's fine.

My relationships are fine.

My decisions are fine.

Like I'm not harming anybody else.

I'm just following after my own goal.

And then it all comes crashing down at a certain point where you realize, no.

If I just take off the rose colored glasses, the city is burning around me and it is truly
my fault.

I wasn't the city's protector or at least I'm the person who has the ability to take
action in this situation.

Yes, no, I love, I didn't actually think of this until just now, right?

I love how this is almost exactly the same lesson as in the Matrix, right?

In the Matrix movie, the glitch in the Matrix is the cat that does the same thing two or
three times, like, deja vu.

And the idea that...

The illusion can't be perfect, right?

If you're telling yourself lies about the world, if you're selling yourself, if you're not
paying attention to the clues the world's telling you, there will be clues.

There will be things like, that doesn't make sense with what I'm thinking is going on.

And if you tug on those threads, in this case it's like, well, the illusion isn't perfect.

And if you tug on those threads, in this case it's like, well, the illusion isn't perfect.

Like, it looks like the world that I thought I was living in.

But once I start digging into it, like, man, there's all this crap.

Like, there's all this stuff that is not the way that I thought, that I was just...

I didn't really want to look at it, so I was assuming that it was fine.

So I love that it's kind of the same mechanism, is the lesson is almost like look for the
glitch in the matrix, right?

If you are, if you're starting to get uncomfortable, look for the things that are not
consistent with your assumptions, right?

Like everything is fine.

We're doing a really great job.

But it's really weird that we're getting these customer complaints, you know, very
consistently, or it's really weird that, you know, the money's not piling up in this place

the way I thought it would be, or it's really weird that this person is always just not
behaving the way that I expected.

Like, lean into that.

Like, maybe you should understand the parts, the facts that are around you that are not
lining up with your assumptions are the ones that are going to teach you something.

Yeah, I want to pull in one of my favorite quotes of all time from the philosopher
Boethius here.

Imprudence may deceive itself, but it cannot alter the true reality of things.

And it just nails it there, right?

So what is that quote saying?

That quote saying, you know, what you from your perspective believe to be true or not true
cannot actually alter the true reality of things.

So be very careful of holding false beliefs and

So be very careful of holding false beliefs and

This is the whole point of the deceiver.

Sauron is trying to, he gives these half truths to Galadriel, to Celebrimbor, so that they
can feel good about themselves and the actions that they're taking.

But the problem is they're just slightly off, just slightly.

Like the things that they're doing, the creation of the ring seems like a noble thing to
do.

It doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Even the Elven rings are good.

He creates truly great rings that rival Feanor's Somerills, which was his goal.

And the Silmarils were pleasing to the Valar and to Illuvatar, so it was a good thing that
they created them, right?

The problem is he just twists it just a little bit, and he's like, no, you don't stop
there.

Like, you got to make more rings.

You've already proven yourself that you can make these.

You can make more.

Well, I love, so I love what you said about six times and that phrase was you, right?

One of our classic wonder tour lessons is the, it's not about you line from Dr.

Strange, right?

And, Sauron is, it's all about you.

It's about your skill.

It's about your vision.

It's about your heroism.

It's about your version of reality.

Right?

So I think that's kind of our second lesson, right?

The, the, the look for the glitch in the matrix looks for the fact that doesn't.

doesn't align with your worldview and maybe tug on that thread and see if it illuminates
something, cast some light as you were saying on the thing that you didn't see before.

But also beware of the, it's all about you leader.

Beware of the, you're special and you get to break the rules and you should do things for
your own motivations and for your own reasons.

Beware of the, you're special and you get to break the rules and you should do things for
your own motivations and for your own reasons.

the leader that is telling you that or the voice inside that is telling you that I've got
that one.

I'm special.

I should be able to do this because I'm smarter than everybody.

Like that, that's also a real risk.

You know, if you get into the, it's all about you mode, then you are more vulnerable to
the illusions.

You're more vulnerable to not seeing the harms, not seeing the consequences, not seeing
over the hill.

Yeah, man, it is so tough.

I mean, this is a really tough mountain top because when you're in that moment with the
illusion up, that's the most comfortable way to live.

Especially considering you know, like there's definitely a part of Kellebrimbor that knows
that an illusion is up.

He admits as much.

He's like, I knew it was there, but I didn't wanna believe it.

And that's, you know, this is...

when relationships deteriorate, like you were saying, Brian, this is when businesses fall
apart.

It's because you knew something was up, but you never took the time to go check out the
true reality of what was going on.

You never pulled back the veil.

You just left up the rose colored glasses thinking, this is good.

And then the part that you added in there about, you know, using the word I, there's
nothing that you can do quicker in a conversation to me to tell me that

you're not necessarily a mature leader, then use the word I 90 % of the time when you're
talking about your organization or your team that, yeah, that if that's the case, then I

mean, we're all, we all are perpetually getting better at it.

I say I sometimes too, when I'm talking about things that I've done.

And also that tells me that we're still internalizing the lesson.

It's not about you.

Right, right, and I think that it's just.

We see genuine skill.

see genuine accomplishment.

We see genuine, you know, intention and effort and all of the characters possibly
accepting Sauron in this series.

Like we talk a lot about for creative people trying to get into the flow state, right?

You know, if you're writing writing code or if you're an artist or you're making a
beautiful PowerPoint deck or whatever, like the idea that you would get super into a task

and we try to be really good at it and sort of shut out the world for long enough to
really just be hyperproductive.

and we try to be really good at it and sort of shut out the world for long enough to
really just be hyperproductive.

That's not a bad thing.

The bad thing is never stepping back and zooming out and like, okay, great.

Am I working on the right thing?

Do I understand the context of what I'm doing?

And I think that's all we're saying.

So I don't know if we have some examples of how that can go poorly, but I feel like this.

Again, this is a series about complexity.

This is a series about tension between order and disorder.

Like we're not saying that there's like one pattern of behavior.

The challenge here is just trying to get some facts, trying to pull, trying to let go of
your illusions and make sure that you're tethered to the ground truth.

Yeah.

So let's get to our practical application.

And this is going to seem maybe simple, but that's kind of the point.

And this is going to seem maybe simple, but that's kind of the point.

Some of the simplest explanations are the most helpful because they're the most
transferable across context.

But if we just look at the Enron example of what happened where we had an organization
that had found an exploit that allowed them to be hyper successful in the short term.

But if we just look at the Enron example of what happened where we had an organization
that had found an exploit that allowed them to be hyper successful in the short term.

But if we just look at the Enron example of what happened where we had an organization
that had found an exploit that allowed them to be hyper successful in the short term.

and then kind of just put up the veil, right?

Put on the rose colored glasses.

And once you've got those red color, once you have those rose colored glasses on in the
Enron story, right?

They find the accounting loophole.

They're able to pull forward their profits and look like they're a extremely successful
business, the most successful business.

And so that gets everybody behind them and they're kind of able to leverage that to
continue to get future profits and pull them forward and.

The problem is that of course it's short sighted and it allows you to live in the lap of
luxury in the present and have this, you know, be a celebrity and how are you doing this

The problem is that of course it's short sighted and it allows you to live in the lap of
luxury in the present and have this, you know, be a celebrity and how are you doing this

type thing, which plays exactly at what Sauron wants us to do, right?

He wants you to make it about you and make it about your ability to be more successful,
more skilled, whatever, rather than learning the lesson we learned in the first lesson, in

the first episode, which is...

Yeah, the way that we defeat darkness is not by being stronger.

So if anybody's trying to tell us that, that, you just got to be stronger.

That's how we're going to save humanity.

We just got to keep getting stronger.

That strength does not defeat darkness.

Lord of the Rings teaches us.

So how do we overcome Sauron in this moment?

Because Sauron wants us to go, this is kind of maybe our last lesson here.

Sauron wants us to go after those short term gains while he is seeking after the long term
gain.

Sauron wants us to go after those short term gains while he is seeking after the long term
gain.

Right.

And I think that's the, I love the way that you had said that, right?

Sauron's always playing the long game.

He's trying to get everyone else to play a short game, right?

And he's very skillful at getting them aligned on goals that they sincerely want on short,
in the short term, but then sort of distracting them from the longer term goals.

And so I think that that's the, that's our challenge is to always be checking in with
those and be checking in with.

are the short-term things we're doing moving us in the right direction?

Are we thinking deeply about what the right direction actually is?

Right?

And there are, you can be successful with both of those approaches, right?

You need to spend most of your time thinking about short-term stuff.

But the, if you're only focused on the short-term benefit, or if you are,

so excited about the short-term benefit that you're not thinking clearly.

think the other example we talked about was like crypto scams, right?

Like there was so there was this whole bubble of like random crypto coins that everybody
was going to invest in that were going to go 100 X value in three months and you were

going to be a millionaire and everybody else was going to be poor.

And it was just because you were so smart, right?

There were a small number of people that got very, very wealthy out of that.

And they were mostly people that were manipulating the system because they have a longer
term view.

And there were a whole lot of people that lost a medium amount of money in those things
because they bought into a system that they didn't understand only because they were

focused on short-term gains with the idea that you could get that with as little effort
and skill as possible.

and yeah.

this and you can do it faster.

You know, and we see that with the rings.

We see him trying to get Celebrimbor like, no, you need to make them faster.

And like, it's okay for the rings of men to be, you know, they don't have to be as good as
the rings for elves.

Yeah, just get them done.

Get it done.

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

That's true.

That's another technique is the pressure like, get it done.

Get it.

It's so urgent.

Then you don't think to zoom out, right?

But that.

that sense that...

you can lose track of the big picture.

That sense that you can sort of just not think very deeply about consequences, right?

Elrond doesn't lose track of the big picture, right?

The counter example we see in this series is that Elrond stays tethered to the greatest
flourishing, stays tethered to the good for the greatest number of people, stays tethered

to his relationships with his friends.

And the people that fail, the people that fall victim are the ones who sort of lose track
of those relationships and those big picture goals when they get too sucked into the

And the people that fail, the people that fall victim are the ones who sort of lose track
of those relationships and those big picture goals when they get too sucked into the

narrative.

That's really good.

So I think we could summarize the whole thing by just looking at both edges of the
spectrum, right?

We love to say that magnanimous leaders lead at the edges and you could call it being
pragmatic.

You can call it a number of different things, but you can see the big picture, which
that's kind of the positive parts of Sauron is he's able to see the big picture, look at

the big levers that we have access to.

And then for us, we want to stay close to the light, not like Sauron.

when we do that, that's a really big picture thing to constantly, and then that also
plays, even the staying close to the light plays at the minutia level, which is know the

reality, know what's actually going on.

Don't allow yourself to be fooled.

Right.

Yeah.

And that's the both easy and hard to do, right?

It's painful.

mean, I there's reason I can't do it 100 % of the time because it's painful to constantly
look at reality.

It requires accepting feedback.

It requires giving feedback that is not going to necessarily immediately give you gains in
that relationship, but is long term going to build that person up or long term going to

build up your relationship or your goal.

And and Sauron's not willing to do that.

right, he isn't.

Everything he does is for is so that that person can get an immediate gain.

He's never working with caliber or so that caliber or can promote human flourishing.

Yeah, yeah, that Sauron is missing the key magnanimous leader trait, right?

It is all about him, right?

He is at the end of the day, the only thing he really cares about is getting power for
himself.

And he's skillfully using these other things, even as much as he's enjoying them, he's
skillfully using these other people and these other levers just to get where he wants to

go.

And so that's the, you we keep coming back to that lesson, weird.

I feel like this was an incredible cap off to our villain series.

I hope that others are able to get something out of it because I know I'm taking a lot
away from it.

Talk to me about what our next series is going to be and what movie we'll be doing next
week.

All right, so we're going to shift gears a little bit.

think we've, we've examined our villain counter examples and seen ways that they succeed
and fail and saw some great, great ideas about how you could or couldn't be, wouldn't want

to be like Hans Gruber or Sauron.

So we're going to shift gears now to some more practical stuff.

We're going to talk about, we're calling the series, Trust the Process.

We're going to talk about playbooks that you can use as a leader to help grow an
organization, to help grow yourself, to help grow people that you're mentoring.

We're going to talk about playbooks that you can use as a leader to help grow an
organization, to help grow yourself, to help grow people that you're mentoring.

what kind of leaders you should look for, and what a good process looks like at not just
an individual level, but an organizational level.

So there's a lot of fun ways to do this.

There'll be some sports analogies in there, but I think we got to start with a martial
arts theme, because I mean, come on, right?

So what are we doing, Drew?

What's our first one?

We're starting off with the, man, my brain just lost it.

Okay, let me give it another go with this.

We're starting off with going back to an animated movie, Kung Fu Panda.

We had to get kind of the modern day karate kid here, enjoy that, like you said, building
up skill from the ground level.

This is gonna be ridiculously fun.

I'm looking forward to it.

So join us next time.

Trust the process.

Kung Fu Panda, Lead Wisely by Wunder Tour.

Just remember until then, as always, character is destiny.