Strong Ground: Pocket Presence and a Lifelong Reading Habit, with Dan Wanous [Episode 02]
Dan Wanous got into this industry at a New Year's Eve party. He was home from college, talking to a family friend about his macro econ class, and the friend, who ran an advisory firm in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, told him he'd make a good advisor. Dan interned there the following summer, sat in on nearly every client meeting, and never really left the industry: about a decade at Thrivent in Minneapolis, then a move to 49 Financial, where he helped launch a sister company called Alongside, a partnership platform now home to eight independent advisory firms.
We spend the middle of the conversation on Strong Ground by Brené Brown, a book Dan is still moving through--dog-eared, underlined, in the middle of his own transformation. Two ideas from it keep coming back around: the "compensatory injury," Brown's idea that you get hurt somewhere in your business because a weaker part of the system had been carrying strain it was never built for, and "pocket presence," a football coach's term for staying composed under pressure that Dan ties to fear, arrogance, and spending most of his career as the youngest person in the room.
From there we get into Katharine Graham's Personal History and the parallel Dan draws to Lincoln's private despair in Doris Kearns Goodwin's Leadership in Turbulent Times, Claire Hughes Johnson's Scaling People as a tactical guide for hiring and onboarding, and a closing round on how Dan actually reads: hard copy over Kindle, field notes he rarely revisits, and the guilty-pleasure audiobook he comes back to once a year.
In this episode
Dan's path in: a New Year's Eve conversation about his macro econ class, an internship in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and a decade at Thrivent in Minneapolis before joining 49 Financial and helping launch Alongside
What Dan does now as head of business development and partner growth at Alongside, and how the firm's partnership model works for advisors weighing independence
Why Dan reads: the roughly 7,000 pages his dad read aloud from Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia, and the trusted recommenders (including a blogger who's reviewed 300 presidential biographies) who guide what he picks up next
Strong Ground by Brené Brown: the "compensatory injury" framework and the difference between executive presence and "pocket presence"
Katharine Graham's Personal History, read partly through Jim Collins's lens, and the parallel Dan draws to Lincoln's private despair in Doris Kearns Goodwin's Leadership in Turbulent Times
Scaling People by Claire Hughes Johnson: the reference-check questions and onboarding habits Dan has built into hiring at Alongside
A speed round on reading habits: hard copy vs. audiobook, field notes, his most-recommended book (Living with a SEAL), and what's on his nightstand now (The Guns of August)
Books mentioned
Notable quotes
"I think unread books are a souvenir of a desire." — Dan Wanous, riffing on Seth Godin's line that read books are "a souvenir of an idea," on why his to-buy pile keeps outrunning his to-read pile
"The enemies of pocket presence are fear and arrogance. When you get too arrogant, you think this is easy, which it is not, so you get careless. Playing small and being careless both lead to a serious problem." — a line from Strong Ground that Dan quotes from football coach Steve Sarkisian, on what it takes to stay composed under pressure
"I think anytime you read a biography, in fact the better it is, the less you leave thinking they were this icon. The more you see them as a real human person with gifts, and maybe genius, but also deep flaws." — Dan Wanous, on what Katharine Graham's Personal History gave him
Chapters
(00:00) Welcome, and why Matt built this show around books
(01:05) How Dan got into the industry: a New Year's Eve conversation and a summer internship in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
(03:34) A decade at Thrivent, then 49 Financial and launching Alongside
(04:39) Dan's role today as head of business development and partner growth at Alongside
(07:01) Why Dan reads: his dad's 7,000 pages of bedtime reading
(10:31) Finding what to read next: trusted recommenders and a blog of 300 presidential biographies
(13:21) Buying books faster than reading them, and Seth Godin's "souvenir of an idea"
(15:34) How personality shapes what resonates: Range and "wicked" learning environments
(19:11) Three books that shaped Dan's personal development
(21:32) Strong Ground: compensatory injuries and pocket presence
(29:58) Personal History: Katharine Graham's story, and the Lincoln parallel in Leadership in Turbulent Times
(40:31) Scaling People: hiring, reference checks, and onboarding
(45:37) Speed round: reading formats, marking up books, and field notes
(49:01) Dan's most-recommended book, and what he's reading now
(51:07) Where to find Dan
About the guest
Dan Wanous leads business development and partner growth at Alongside, a partnership platform for independent advisory firms that has grown to eight partner firms in its first year. Before Alongside, he spent about a decade at Thrivent in Minneapolis and then joined 49 Financial, whose teaching-hospital model pairs newer advisors with senior mentors. Dan got his start in the industry the summer before his senior year of college, interning with an advisory firm in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after a family friend suggested he'd be a good fit. He holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Sara.
