PPP 509 | Stop Letting Great Ideas Slip Away: A System for Leadership Recall, with author Steve Kahle

Summary

In this episode, Andy welcomes back Steve Kahle, entrepreneur, executive, and fractional CIO, author of Leadership Recall: Harness Insights. Accelerate Innovation. LEAD WITH AUTHORITY. Steve first joined the podcast in episode 184 to discuss email overload. This time, the conversation turns to a challenge every leader faces: the forgetting curve. Research suggests we forget up to 83% of what we learn within a week, and Steve argues this is not just a learning problem, it's a leadership problem.

Steve shares his CCR framework (Capture, Catalog, and Recall), along with practical tools such as the Anki flashcard app and the Email Me voice-note app, to build what he calls a learning operating system. The discussion covers how to design a recall fitness practice in as little as three minutes a day and how removing friction at every step keeps the system sustainable.

If you're looking for a practical system to stop letting great insights slip away and start leading with more authority, this episode is for you!

Sound Bites

• "I think God put in my heart to be a relentless optimizer. I like to see things work and work well."
• "When you really zoom out in life, those who are really successful have figured out what are the frameworks, what are the methodologies that work, and they simply apply those."
• "Our subconscious mind can handle about 11 million bits of data per second, but about 40 bits conscious mind."
• "I went all in. Christ totally transformed my heart, and I'm realizing that scripture memory is a superpower."
• "Time swiftly washes away the obvious."
• "Learning really is a privilege, and we need to be able to find time that works with our daily rhythms."
• "Three minutes a day is really all you need to be able to see tremendous traction on being able to recall things that matter"
• "Instead of 'I'm bad at remembering names,' you could, do a reframe like, 'Hey, I'm getting better at remembering people's names.'"

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:48 Start of Interview
• 02:06 Early Experiences and the Instinct to Remember
• 04:08 Is Memory a Natural Gift or a Trainable Skill?
• 05:19 Forgetting as a Feature, Not Just a Bug
• 07:10 The Leadership Cost of Forgetting
• 09:10 Shifting the Bottleneck from Input to Retention
• 12:02 The Five-Hour Rule and Three Learning Archetypes
• 14:19 The CCR Framework in Practice: Capture, Catalog, and Recall
• 19:50 Removing Friction from Your Learning System
• 23:23 Inside Anki: Cloze Deletions and Building Cards
• 26:10 Organizing Your Recall Decks
• 27:30 Real-World Results: When Readers Apply the System
• 28:56 Building Recall Habits in Your Kids
• 32:50 How to Get the Book
• 34:01 End of Interview
• 34:17 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 37:46 Outtakes

Learn More

You can learn more about Steve and his work at leadershiprecall.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 184 with Steve Kahle. It's our previous conversation about keeping your head above water when drowning in email and commitments. Definitely recommend checking it out.
• Episode 411 with Laura Mae Martin. She's the head of productivity at Google and shares ideas that I still use to this day.
• Episode 376 with Nick Sonnenberg. It's a book about helping you and your team stop drowning in all the information and commitments at work.

Chat with PMeLa

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

Pass the PMP Exam

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

Join Us for LEAD52

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Memory, Learning, Productivity, Knowledge Management, Recall, Spaced Repetition, Personal Development, Continuous Learning, Networking, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Imagefilm 034 by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license