How to break out of autopilot and create the life you want | Graham Weaver (Stanford GSB professor, founder of Alpine Investors)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Graham Weaver teaches a top-rated course at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), where he often unexpectedly ends up helping students figure out what to do with their lives. He is also the founder and CEO of Alpine Investors, a people-driven private equity firm. In our conversation, we discuss:

• Why everything worthwhile requires suffering

• Why most people operate on autopilot, and how to break free

• The “genie methodology” for discovering your true path

• The Nine Lives exercise for exploring different life possibilities

• How to overcome limiting beliefs that hold you back

• Why “not now” is often just another way of saying “never”

• More

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-break-out-of-autopilot-graham-weaver

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Where to find Graham Weaver:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-weaver-2b79

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grahamcweaver

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@grahamcweaver

• Website: https://www.grahamweaver.com

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@grahamcweaver

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Graham’s background

(05:30) Helping students find their true path

(07:40) The genie methodology

(12:36) Breaking free from autopilot mode

(17:54) Identifying and overcoming limiting beliefs

(20:33) Teaching entrepreneurship and personal fulfillment

(22:53) The reality of long-term success

(35:14) The role of accountability and executive coaching

(40:22) Daily goal setting for success

(43:11) The Nine Lives framework

(48:01) The dangers of the “not now” mentality

(55:27) Navigating life’s transitions

(57:19) Failure corner

(01:00:24) When to quit and when to persevere

(01:02:18) Final thoughts and lightning round

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Referenced:

• Setting Goals: Demystified: https://www.grahamweaver.com/blog/goals

• Tony Robbins’s website: https://www.tonyrobbins.com

• Alpine Investors: https://alpineinvestors.com

• Stanford GSB Last Lecture 2024—How to Live Your Life at Full Power: https://www.grahamweaver.com/blog/stanford-graduate-business-school-last-lecture-2024

• I turned 50 today. Here is the most important thing I learned in my first half century: https://www.grahamweaver.com/blog/turning-50

• Where the Crawdads Sing on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Crawdads-Sing-Daisy-Edgar-Jones/dp/B0B5KBKDNL

• Chilipad Cube Bed Cooling System: https://www.amazon.com/Chilipad-Cube-Bed-Cooling-System/dp/B07GT9MYRW

• Sleepme OOLER Sleep System: https://www.amazon.com/OOLER-Sleep-System-Temperature-Integration/dp/B07RX8LT9G

• Eightsleep: https://www.eightsleep.com

• Howard Thurman’s quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6273-don-t-ask-what-the-world-needs-ask-what-makes-you

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Recommended books:

• Switch: How to Change Things when Change Is Hard: https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752

• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Untethered-Soul-Journey-Beyond-Yourself/dp/1572245379

• Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is the Beginning and End of Suffering: https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Believe-Everything-Think-Expanded/dp/B0D47VYQMY

• How to Win Friends and Influence People: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You are ostensibly a professor at Stanford Graduate School Business, and you shared that when people come ask you for advice, the most common question you get is, what should I do with my life?
0:10.7	Imagine that you're walking home from work, you see this bright, shiny object, and you realize it's a magic lamp, and you rub the lamp, and this genie comes out, and the genie says, hey, I can give you one wish.
0:20.0	Whatever you throw yourself into with your whole life and your career, it's going to turn out great.
0:25.9	If that were true and you had that genie, what would you wish for?
0:28.9	At some point in this one life we get, you want to get yourself on that path of that journey.
0:35.2	This whole exercise connects to something that you're a big advocate of,
0:38.3	of this idea of getting out of autopilot mode in your life. You're unconscious and you may not even
0:42.8	realize why you're doing what you're doing or even really is what you're doing. So for example,
0:47.0	I get up, workout, drive into work, fight traffic, commute, maybe I return some emails,
0:51.5	fight traffic on the way home, rush through dinner, go to bed.
0:54.6	It's not a day that is intentional.
0:57.3	It's not a day where I've said, where do I want to be going with my life?
1:00.8	What's important to me in this world?
1:02.4	You have another quote, which is, everything that you want is on the other side of worse first.
1:07.8	Pick anything.
1:08.6	You want a better body.
1:10.7	Okay, you're going to need to go to the gym. When you go to
1:13.7	the gym the first few times, it's going to not be that fun. The first move is negative. If I'm
1:19.1	optimizing for tomorrow and I just want to have a great day tomorrow, I'm going to stay exactly
1:23.7	where I am. So many people I see have this happen where they just, they hit a plateau and
1:27.7	they never move past it because they're not willing to have that, that hard day, month, week,
1:34.4	year. When should you quit something? Because some things are just not worth it. I think the time to
	...

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