Chris Ruden: Radical Curiosity, the Labels We Choose, and a One-Handed World Record

Chris Ruden was born with two fingers on his left hand and a shorter left arm, and he says he hid it for more than 17 years. He and Ryan Vet talk about what that did to his sense of who he was, and about the idea he built his speaking career on: radical curiosity.

## Ideas worth keeping

- **The belief did the damage.** Chris's line on labels: it was not the insults that hurt, it was that he believed them. - **Stories are not facts.** A story told often enough starts to feel like a fact. Feeling certain is not the same as being right. - **How might we?** His working question. He says the word "might" gives people the psychological safety to speak without needing to be right. - **Is it optimal?** His replacement for "does it work?" Legacy narratives work until they don't. - **Certainty is not competency.** He says leaders who admit they do not have the full answer get their teams to believe in them more. - **Ten minutes a week.** Start one meeting with what the team might have missed.

Numbers in this conversation, including the 675 lb lift, the 7 million views and the 17 years of hiding, are Chris's own on-air statements.