If you ask entrepreneur and former NFL player Dhani Jones what he does for a living, he’ll say he reads the Matrix. His insatiable curiosity and experience in a vast array of worlds has made him a conduit of information. Whether it’s through his investments, his TV shows, or his consulting work – Dhani likes to help people make sense of the world with his unique perspective. A perspective that is deeply rooted in his love for football. Dhani joins Breaking Schemas hosts Marcus Collins and John Branch to chat about his path from the University of Michigan to entrepreneurship and strategic advising, how football has helped shape that journey, and why he believes the key to success is saying yes. *Breaking Schemas is a production of the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative at Michigan Ross and is produced by University FM.*Most business leaders with good sense would say starting a for-profit company and a nonprofit company at the same time is not going to be a successful business venture. You need to make the money first and then invest in the nonprofit later. But that’s exactly what David Merritt, former University of Michigan point guard, did. David was so invested in the mission of his company, Merit Goodness, he was determined to find a way to make his fashion brand work just enough to simultaneously fund his after-school college planning program for Detroit youth. Since starting the company 12 years ago, they’ve helped hundreds of students graduate high school and go on to college with the resources they need to succeed for the rest of their lives. David tells Breaking Schemas co-hosts Marcus Collins and John Branch that the key ingredient to Merit Goodness is all about shifting perspective on what success means. *Breaking Schemas is a production of the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative at Michigan Ross and is produced by University FM.*
If you ask entrepreneur and former NFL player Dhani Jones what he does for a living, he’ll say he reads the Matrix. His insatiable curiosity and experience in a vast array of worlds has made him a conduit of information.
Whether it’s through his investments, his TV shows, or his consulting work – Dhani likes to help people make sense of the world with his unique perspective. A perspective that is deeply rooted in his love for football.
Dhani joins Breaking Schemas hosts Marcus Collins and John Branch to chat about his path from the University of Michigan to entrepreneurship and strategic advising, how football has helped shape that journey, and why he believes the key to success is saying yes.
*Breaking Schemas is a production of the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative at Michigan Ross and is produced by University FM.*
Episode Quotes:
Disruption occurs when you take chances
13:25: People always say, when you're young, you think you're blazing the trail; you're older. You look back, and you realize it's just a beaten path. I understand that quote too, but there's a couple of paths that are a little bit less beaten. So you have to be able to move downhill, take your chances, and take a shot. And sometimes, the more experiences that you have, the more times you've had to fall down. But that also means that you have an opportunity to understand what it's like to get up.
An advice for folks who want to disrupt their career and category
24:34: If you want to disrupt the category that you're in, you can't do what everybody else is doing. I think that's pretty simple, but the challenge with that is that you have to be willing to accept the consequences of going about things differently. And so that's two. And then the third thing is that you have to understand what your risk tolerance is.
The faster the game goes the slower the thought process is
21:46: The biggest jump that people have when they go from high school to college and college to pros is the speed of the game. And that's because everybody is all of a sudden amped up their processing speed, right? If you think about the iPhone number one versus iPhone number 3000 that we're on right now, the processing speed has increased; therefore, you're able to do more things much more quickly, right? Same thing in sports, but that's also the same thing in saying yes. You have to be able to delineate between whatever that yes is and the yes that will be. And be able to decide, based upon previous experience and being able to process that much more quickly, where you should focus your yes on or your next yes to be.
(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)
[00:00:00] Marcus: Welcome to Breaking Schemas, a podcast that explores the dynamic changes of contemporary business through the lenses of the disruptors who have not only navigated the changes but have also rewritten the rules of the game. We’ll be sitting down with business leaders across a wide spectrum of industries to discuss their victories, their failures, and the biggest lessons they’ve experienced throughout their career to prepare tomorrow’s leaders—that’s you!—for an ever-changing marketplace.
I’m Marcus Collins, marketing professor here at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. I’ll be your host, along with my co-conspirator, Professor John Branch. Now, let’s get into it.
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of Breaking Schemas. We have with us another leaders in best, because that's just what we do around here. Please, help me welcome to the pod, Dhani Jones, former professional athlete, serial entrepreneur, television personality, hyphen, hyphen, hyphen, hyphen, hyphen.
Dhani, thanks for being with me, man.
[00:01:05] Dhani: Thanks for having me. I don't know what I should do about all these hyphens.
[00:01:09] Marcus: I mean…
[00:01:10] Dhani: You know, maybe I should put another hyphen on top of the hyphen, and it's just more of like an equal sign.
[00:01:15] Marcus: I think that's the interesting part, though. I mean, it is interesting about you, that you're a man of many hats, but interestingly, somehow or another, the continuity between all these different disparate things that you do seem very clear. And that's the thing that I'm really interested in talking to you about today.
[00:01:32] Dhani: Yeah, appreciate that. I've been trying to convince people of that, but sometimes they just think I'm doing a little bit too much. But, you know, I always, I always say, right, you got to build out your tool belt for any situation, right? And the things that you've learned in your past are equally as important to the things that you're doing now and equally important to the things that you're doing in the future.
[00:01:52] Marcus: So, let's give this some frame. And we'll start with this. So, how do you describe the work that you do in all the many facets that you occupy in the world? If someone says, “Oh, Dhani Jones, good to meet you. What do you do, right? Tell us what you do.” Like, how do you answer that question?
[00:02:10] Dhani: Well, I've answered it in a lot of different ways at different times. I've settled on one particular way in terms of being an investor and advisor and board member. And that's, sort of, the culmination of the consulting work that I do and the projects that I've been able to build out with other people.
Now, I would say that's more of an ordinary response that fits into a box that I think people can understand and rationalize, but what I just recently started saying is, you know in The Matrix, you know, you got those green lines? Like, I read the lines in The Matrix.
[00:02:49] Marcus: Okay, okay.
[00:02:51] Dhani: You know, I just went back and I watched the first Matrix. And, you know, it's amazing how much of that stuff has come true. Now, a lot of people, and me included, I don't necessarily think we're plugged in, so to speak, like, Neo was plugged in. However, I do believe we all sleep with our phone in our hand, right, and most of the technology that we have is plugged into some sort of matrix that is now feeding the system with information that we essentially have been able to create. And then, that is, therefore, coming back to us in some way by utilizing machines, so…
[00:03:26] Marcus: Well, maybe we can follow that analog for just a moment. I mean, if you think about a lot of the products that we use the most are social networking platforms that are co-created value. And we are the batteries that fuel those machines in very many ways.
[00:03:43] Dhani: I’m just saying.
[00:03:43] Marcus: So, it holds.
[00:03:44] Dhani: I’m just saying. So, I like to read the lines. I like to see where things are going. I like to think that I've been fortunate enough to meet so many different people walking down so many paths, that what I've been able to do is synthesize that information from multiple sources.
And then, I feel as though I'm a conduit. I'm a conduit for those that are, maybe, an inch wide and a mile deep and that are not necessarily seeing the proverbial greens around the corner on the golf course, so that they know that they should take their five iron and hit it over top of the trees and they'll know directionally where they're going and trust that it's actually out there.
And, you know, I'm a curious guy. I was a Montessori kid, growing up. I'm still a Montessori kid to this day. And so, I'm persistent with the questions that I ask. And oftentimes, they're not just for me. They're, oftentimes, for you. They're for John. They’re for everybody else that I've met along the way, so that, at another point, when they want to ask me a question, I can respond by saying, “I was actually able to get that question answered for you, and I just so happened to be in Las Vegas while I was doing it. Or I might have just been in Shanghai, or I might have been Accra.” Who knows?
[00:05:05] Marcus: Now, John, a little context for you. So, Dhani and I were in school together. We were in school in undergrad together. And I think I met Dhani in our organic chemistry course 210 or whatever, organic chemistry. And he is not lying when he comes to… we talked about being curious. I mean, Dhani would ask so many questions that the professor would be like, “Stop, Dhani. Enough, enough.” It was almost a joke in class. It was like, “Dhani, enough with the questions.”
[00:05:33] Dhani: Well, I sat in the front row. So, I think it's only appropriate that I uphold the laws of the front row of the classroom, which means you're in first position, right? If you're going to be in the front of the line because you got there the earliest or you decided to be in the front, then you should be able to, you know, capitalize on that opportunity. So, I was having a one-on-one discussion with the professor. It's not my fault you were sitting in the back of the room, Marcus.
[00:05:59] Marcus: That is true. I was in the middle of the room. But this is what I think was so interesting about you as a person. I've always been intrigued about this. And truthfully, this is actually what I've always liked about you, is your curiosity, and to this point about, like, reading the Tea Leaves or reading The Matrix, as you mentioned it, because you don't typically see that from most student athletes.
Now, another thing for everyone listening who probably knows this already, Dhani played on the football team in Michigan. And it’s not a prototypical thing. You're just not a prototypical person. And you're like, you've always, sort of, had an X factor to you, i.e., player of football team, really, really curious. The questions you ask were smart and informed. And your career has been not prototypical in that fashion as well. So, you went straight from undergrad into the NFL. Then, you come out of the NFL and you go in… you're making bow ties. You are a personality on television, not in sports, though. And now, you are an entrepreneur. You're a strategic advisor. This is not a traditional path.
How did you get here? Like, what were the decisions you made along the way to go the path that is not expected? Like, you didn't become a commentator. Like, you're not sitting next to Desmond Howard, commentating the games. What was the thinking?
[00:07:21] Dhani: In some ways, I'm not necessarily sure. In other ways, I think I just said, yes. I always say that the breeze of opportunity is everywhere around you and it presents itself, but you have to be sensitive enough to realize it, right? I say yes, because I have a certain level of curiosity. And that next “yes” perpetuates into the next opportunity, therefore perpetuates into the next question, and therefore the next opportunity. They keep building on each other, right?
I've done TV. I love television. I had had a great time. And, and to some extent, I still continue to do it. I do my podcast called The Pathfinders and I'm not as talented as you are, but I take my notes from the Dr. Collins of the world. But, you know, I had my ESPN show, I had my Fox show, I had my DirecTV show, I had my Travel Channel show, I had my CNBC show. You know, I was doing some of the commentating stuff, but the angle that the world pushed me towards, and I think this is something to be sensitive to as well, it pushed me towards worlds or boundaries which had yet been crossed, right? So, my travel channel show where I was around the world and play different sports, and you can find it on Hulu, it's called Dhani Tackles the Globe. It's a wonderful show. I get to travel around the world, and-
[00:08:40] Marcus: It's a great show. Very fun.
[00:08:42] Dhani: … and play different sports and understand different cultures. But the world just kept pushing me that direction and the world of linear, if you will, in talking strictly about sports and first and 10 and fourth and goal and transition game and who went across and did what route and what defense was played became less and less where my voice was being heard. And so, my last show was my CNBC show is adventure capitalism is very similar to my travel show, except now I'm meeting the Johns of the world that have interesting companies that they want me to invest in.
And I love it, because now I can bring the experience of being a middle linebacker, the curiosity of being a Montessori kid, and take my tool belt and say, “Hey, Marcus, these are the things I've learned. I'm going to help you grow your business. Let's win together.” And then that falls back to the team, the team, the team, which is Michigan.
[00:09:41] Marcus: That’s right.
[00:09:42] Dhani: Right. And so, while the direction of what might be called in terms traditional might've been the case, the yes’s took me down the route and my voice took me down this path of advising and consulting and investing and being on boards of companies because I was able to bring a unique spin to the room.
[00:10:03] Marcus: John, this sounds like a little familiar from conversations we had before with Mike Muse, no less, a mutual friend of ours, right? This idea of bricolage, of, kind of, bringing together, these different experiences, different points of view, different walks of life that one person has in all their intersectionality, and finding opportunity right where those things converge, but being willing to say yes to them, to be able to, to identify them, sensitive enough to identify them, I love that, and willing enough to say yes to them. John, does that sound about right to you? That sounds familiar to you, too?
[00:10:37] John: Yeah, but you know what really is jumping out at me, Marcus and Dhani, is “yes” as the disruptor.
[00:10:43] Marcus: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:44] John: Right? Bricolage is good. You know, assembling, kind of, DIYing these disparate things. But yes, as the disruptor, if I think of, of your career, Dhani, what’s clear is that these paths, which have not been previously taken by you, you say yes to them. And although the old school is there's got to be this clear, linear, red thread which joins all of the pieces together, by saying yes to different things, actually, there is no red thread, necessarily, and there is no linear direction. But at the end of the day, you are better and wiser and just more profitable as a result of it.
[00:11:21] Dhani: Well, I also look at, if you think about a game, right? As a middle linebacker, you have to, oftentimes, take chances. The coach draws up a play and says that, “Oh, okay. Well, the guard is going to pull to your right. And being the left outside linebacker, you're going to follow them across the center. And then your job is to hit now the front side A gap.” But what happens if you see the near side A gap open and the running back is not moving as fast?
Now, they've got an opportunity to cut back, which happens all the time. But as you can see in the national championship, our defense held their gap, and some people shot the gap. And they made tackles for loss, they disrupted the play, So John, to your point, you have to trust the process and you can't always follow whatever circumstantial rules are in place, because you're right, that's not how disruption, essentially, occurs. New paths are forged. Now, people always say, you know, when you're young, you think you're blazing the trail. You're older, you look back and you realize it's just a beaten path. Like, I understand that quote, too, but there's a couple of paths that are a little bit less beaten, so to speak.
So, you have to be able to move downhill, take your chances, take a shot. And sometimes, you know, the more experiences that you have, the more times you've had to fall down. But that also means that you have an opportunity to understand what it's like to get up. And therefore, it builds that level of resilience and also adds to the tool belts of success, but also failures, which inevitably build that Lego set of success because of the fact that you've been there before, right?
I mean, I've read all these books in my background, but, but the stories are of ones from days of old that are very relevant to today. Those are people that have taken a shot, including Thurgood Marshall and so many other people, Roosevelt, but they give you the tools. And so, I'm just trying to sharpen mind.
[00:13:23] John: You know, I love this answer, Dhani. It reminds me a little bit of myself, and I'll tell you why. So, I was an engineer as an undergraduate. And I don't think, well, you know, that old phrase, you can take the kid out of engineering, but you can't take the engineering out of the kid. I'm 56 years old now, but I still think like an engineer. That, that is my go-to place because I'm comfortable thinking as an engineer.
In theory, we call this self-reference criterion, SRC, that when you're put in situations where you don't think, you naturally go back to that comfortable place. And your answer revealed something. Although you're no longer a middle linebacker, right, when you are put into some situations, you immediately refer back to that comfort place, that tacit knowledge, that all those synapses which are firing, without you even thinking about it, right? So, it was great that you gave an analogy around being in the middle linebacker, trying to respond to my comment about your career. That's great, SRC, self-reference criterion.
[00:14:29] Dhani: The self-reference criteria?
[00:14:33] John: Yeah.
[00:14:33] Dhani: I like that. You think a lot of people know about self-reference criteria? Like, how do you move, how do you move out of your self-reference criteria?
[00:14:40] John: I'm not sure you do. Just to quote another little fun thing, the New York Times recently had a great article about how people develop their love of music and their particular genre when they're about 13 years old, right? So, look back when you were 13 years old, the groups you were listening to at 13, are they still your favorite groups today? The research shows very demonstratively that the music you listened to when you were 13 tends to be the stuff you listen to today, right? It's just who you are.
[00:15:12] Marcus: And I'm definitely introducing my kids to Boyz II Men still, because I'm still very much a fan.
[00:15:18] Dhani: I did see a… it was either an article or a video post of some sort talking about how when you're younger, you do, kind of, get into these, maybe frameworks, right? And maybe this goes down a different route. You only can be taught so much.
And I think one of the things that they were trying to say is that it's really, really important. I think this is what you're also saying, John, is, like, you know, when you have kids and when they're of a certain age, you really got to be focused on the things that they're learning, because that is part of who they will ultimately be, period.
[00:15:51] John: That’s right.
[00:15:51] Dhani: When they're comfortable, when they're uncomfortable, they're always going to go back to this framework of what you were taught before a certain age. And I think, you know, when people transition out of places, right? So, you go into a job, you transition to another job, transition to another job, people always ask athletes, you know, how come you can't transition out of the game? And I wonder if, you know, going back to this person's reference of the framework, you know, what work you actually have to put into in order to shift into a new framework, like, can you do it? That's my question. Can you actually do it? If you can't, then it's more of, like, how do you use the tools of what you had from before and apply them moving forward? So, that those that are engineers can understand how you're translating what your knowledge is into being an engineer. Like, how do you meld the languages together? How do you get the languages to speak the same?
[00:16:41] Marcus: And that, kind of, cognitive plasticity to subvert that requires just a ton of intentionality, right? Otherwise, you just, kind of, fall back on the muscle memory. That's, kind of, what it's for. I mean, imagine just, like, even being the sports side that, like, you practice so much that there is this fluidity, in that when you play the game, you don't have to think, you just act. You know, you just, kind of, do.
There's a saying that practice makes perfect, but actually the literature really means that practice makes patterns and patterns make routine. And the notion is that we do a thing in such a degree that we don't have to think about it. We just do. We just react. We just respond. And that plasticity that we have in our minds to, sort of, act in that way helps us be much more efficient and, actually, a lot more effective at what we do.
[00:17:30] Dhani: And that's the reason why people should talk to more people. People should do more things. When I was growing up, I didn't play one sport. I played multiple sports. And those multiple sports translated into multiple tools to play the game of football. Albeit, not necessarily the way that my coach always wanted me to play, but I still made the play.
So, it still worked, right? But it gave me a broader range. And so, I try to impress that upon people all the time. Talk to different people. Try new things. Like, if you were just growing up eating rice your entire life, if you eat lettuce your entire life, all of a sudden, something spicy comes up and you just hate it. It's not because it's not good. It's because the fact that you've never tried spice ever before in your life. So, you need to add flavors, which equates to cultures and traveling, which equates to plasticity, right?
[00:18:23] Marcus: So, question for you, Dhani. So, I love this idea, yes, as a disrupter, right? Be able to, to be sensitive enough to feel the opportunities, the right opportunities, and then having the willingness to actually go. What are the downfalls that… or actually, what regrets have you had, downfalls you've experienced, having that sort of point of view, that approach to your work?
[00:18:45] Dhani: No, there have definitely been things that I've moved too quickly through, because the next yes felt more important than the current yes.
You know, I can recall investments where I was excited about doing it. Then, all of a sudden, I got excited about the next investment and I forgot about the last investment. And the last investment over the period of five years became 500% greater than the yes investment that I ended up going with because I forgot about the last one, right?
So, sometimes, you'll be moving too fast and you'll forget. Some might say, well, that's the way it was supposed to be, because maybe you'll learn from that previous mistake. And then the next yes, you'll maybe focus a little bit more on. But that can play itself out with investments that can play itself out in conversations with people. It can play itself out in a multitude of things that just have to deal with tempo.
And tempo, I think, is something that you learn over time. If I'm going back to my roots of sports, the game slows down because your brain thinking speeds up. So, I'm in the game, and it's too fast, too fast. That's because I'm not processing quickly enough in order to understand what's going on, like, the biggest jump that people have when they go from high school to college and college to pros is the speed of the game. And that's because everybody is, all of a sudden, like, amped up their processing speed, right? If you think about the iPhone number one versus iPhone number 3000 that we're on right now, the processing speed has increased. Therefore, you're able to do more things that much more quickly, right?
Same thing in sports, but that's also the same thing in saying yes. You have to be able to delineate between whatever that “yes” is and the “yes” that will be and be able to decide based upon previous experience and being able to process that much more quickly where you should focus your “yes’ on or your next “yes” to be.
[00:20:46] Marcus: Super enlightening. Super enlightening. And I love that, the faster the game goes, the slower the thought process. Like, you're just, kind of, making it happen, right?
[00:20:55] Dhani: Well, you just figure it out. You're just like, “Oh, I've seen this before. Let me just wait.” You ever see a linebacker in the middle of a game and it looks like they're not doing anything at all, but all of a sudden, they make a play behind the line of scrimmage? It's because they already see what's happening and they're just waiting for it to materialize. And then they know exactly what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it. That's when it becomes effortless.
[00:21:15] Marcus: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:16] Dhani: And there's plenty of players that you can… Charles Woodson, one of the greatest cornerbacks of all time. You can call him cornerback, you can call him safety, you can call him wide receiver. He just saw the game differently. That's how he played. The reason he was in the places that he was is because he already knew where he was supposed to be. He was just waiting for them to catch up with him.
[00:21:36] Marcus: He can read The Matrix.
[00:21:37] Dhani: He could read The Matrix.
[00:21:38] Marcus: Yeah.
[00:21:39] Dhani: He could see the green lines. He already saw the play happen, right? He even knew where the glitches were. He's like, “Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. They changed something.” That's when you call a timeout.
[00:21:50] Marcus: Uh-huh.
[00:21:51] Dhani: And you go to the coach and you say, “They changed the game plan. Those first 15 plays are not what they're going with like they used to.”
[00:21:57] Marcus: What you have accomplished in your career, it's pretty incredible, truly. In all measures, it's pretty incredible. And as we have people who are currently students now, people who have recently graduated, and they're navigating their career and trying to make some incredible strides in their careers so they can have something similar to yours, not manifested identically, but have the same sort of gravitas and the same sort of non-traditional approach, what advice would you give these folks who are listening? So, what would you tell them? They want to pursue a disruptive career and disrupt the category at their end. What advice would you give them?
[00:22:34] Dhani: Well, if you want to disrupt the category that you're in, you can't do what everybody else is doing. I think that's pretty simple. But the challenge with that is you have to be willing to accept the consequences of going about things differently. And so, that's two. And then the third thing is you have to understand what your risk tolerance is. That's just specific to that world, right?
[00:22:57] Marcus: Yeah.
[00:22:57] Dhani: If everybody's making a right-hand turn and you're making a right-hand turn, you're not disrupting anything. Now, everybody making a right-hand turn, you made a left-hand turn, okay, everybody that's going right is going to be upset that you went left. And if you made a left-hand turn and everybody went right and everybody's upset about it, there may not be any sustenance to the left and you might starve. Or, you might have to wander a little bit more in the desert before you actually find your oasis.
So, that's a small bit of advice that you have to, kind of, contemplate, if you will. I would also say there's magnitudes of disruption that I think are important to examine. You can just look at it like an earthquake, you know. There's earthquakes that happen all the time that you never feel. And then there's ones that, unfortunately, bring buildings down.
[00:23:51] Marcus: Yeah. They're all disruptive.
[00:23:54] Dhani: They're all disruptive.
[00:23:55] Marcus: But the magnitude is different, yeah.
[00:23:57] Dhani: The magnitude is different, right? Those micro-corrections, over time, become macro changes. So, I think that's important.
I think it's also important, and I was grateful to spend a lot of time at school just learning a little bit more about myself. I designed my own major. Yeah, I took my organic chemistry, which I love biochemistry, which was most challenging class ever, but I still got to ask a lot of questions. But I designed my own major, which was called self-representation, which allowed me some flexibility. And Anne Savageau, who is my mentor and my curator, helped me, kind of, go down these different paths. But I think you also have to understand a little bit more about who you are as a person. And that's becoming increasingly more and more challenging, even for, for, us.
[00:24:44] Marcus: Yeah.
[00:24:45] Dhani: John's hard for you, it's hard for you, Marc. It's hard for me. Even though we may not want to, like, admit it's difficult trying to figure out who we are, we're all evolving, we're all changing, we're all trying to figure out who we are. It's just part of life. And I think that it's becoming a little bit more challenging because we're all plugged in and, therefore, we're all turning to the right.
So, to separate yourself from the pack is becoming a little bit more challenging. And the first piece to separate yourself is to, sort of, understand yourself and to be able to flip to the pages of who Marcus is, is becoming more challenging.
So, I would say another piece of advice is talk to the people that really know you and then talk to the people that don't know you. People that know you will give you feedback. And ask them for real feedback. And if you have to write on a piece of paper, “Disclaimer, I will not hate you for telling me the truth,” then do it.
But then also talk to the people that don't know you, because, you know, someone said, would you know what you look like if you didn't have a mirror? It’s simple. You wouldn't know what you look like.
[00:25:53] Marcus: Yeah.
[00:25:54] Dhani: You only know what you look like based upon the mirror, or you only know what you look like based upon what other people see.
[00:26:01] Marcus: That's right.
[00:26:02] Dhani: And some of the people that have never met you before, never seen you before, might give you a little bit different feedback than those that see you all the time. It's like a child, you know, and a parent that's with them all the time. “Oh, Billy. Oh, looks the same, looks the same.” Then, all of a sudden, grandparents coming to town after two years, “Oh, Billy grew up so fast. Like, she looks so different.” Oh, I didn't notice. You didn't notice because you've seen Billy in those micro movements, not those macro changes. And those macro changes are really compelling if you give people an opportunity to, sort of, see you and tell you what you really look like.
[00:26:38] Marcus: Well said, because even what you see when you look in the mirror, what other people see aren't always the same. But having a picture that represents both of them, you get a better understanding of who you are. So well said.
Dhani, man, we're so grateful for your brilliance, for your time, for your vulnerability, letting us step inside your world for just a moment to get a glimpse of what it is to be you so that we can glean some knowledge and make better decisions ourselves. Thank you so very much, my friend. Always great seeing you. Go, Blue!
[00:27:08] Dhani: Go, Blue! Thank you, Marcus and John.
[00:27:11] John: Take care, Dhani. Go, Blue!
[00:27:12] Marcus: Appreciate you, Dhani.
Breaking Schemas is a Michigan Ross podcast, powered by the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative and produced by University FM. Go, Blue!