The Warrior Poet
**Get yourself unstuck and be a leader.** Andrew "Sri" Sridhar is a former Navy SEAL, Harvard MBA, Wall Street escapee, and technologist. He interviews top military leaders, academic thinkers, and business phenoms to up your game. The Warrior Poet is a tightly woven tapestry of leadership expertise, philosophical inquiry, and pop culture. It's a portmanteau of Brainpickings, Wait But Why, and (Sri only wishes) Seinfeld. Yes, Sri sometimes writes haikus.
- Update frequency
- every 8 days
- Average duration
- 39 minutes
- Episodes
- 96
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
#55: Focus Pocus
Focus is all the rage in self-help culture, but what does it really mean? And what does true focus entail?
"Tools and techniques" of successful people amount to self-help porn, which is worse than re…
#54: The Dark Quadrant
Sri talks about a type of knowledge that is largely ignored relative to its siblings: the unknown known.
Connect with Sri on Instagram: @sri_the_warrior_poet + @sri_actually
notes
#53: Tandem Jump
Organizations tend to value displaying coordination than truly being coordinated. Operating at world-class levels demands trust, mission orientation, clear division of responsibility, direct communic…
#52: Departures Magazine
Party in the back: Four desserts that should exist in this world | "The Pitbull Option"
Business in the front: It's tough balancing when to work on setting goals and planning vs. just executing with …
#51: Charmonium
It is fashionable to celebrate the idea that leaders can be quiet, unassuming, and uninspiring. Sri has a different take.
Connect with Sri on Instagram: @sri_the_warrior_poet + @sri_actually
notes
#50: Leader As Therapist
Management is usually obsessed with things it can measure -- and rightly so. But this can go too far. One example is focusing too much on hard skills like coding, data analysis, or design skills. Whi…
#49: Half and Half
Sri discusses an overlooked Godfather character and why companies get fat.
Innovative companies get caught in a no man's land, i.e. halfway, between innovation and collection of innovation 'rents.' An…
#48: Project-Based Yearning
How a project-based focus can transform your work and life
notes
- Related article from Sri: "When Will We Escape the Prison of Work" (Medium)
💬 Have a question? Shoot us a text!
📌 FEELING STUCK?
LIMITED…
#47: Free Radical
This is not a political podcast. Sri’s been “clean” from politics for years. But he takes a break to explain why he's not voting in the imminent election. Plus, curated covers of one of the best pop-…
#46: Hunger Strike
Sri discusses what to do with your life with Charlie Munger and Temple of the Dog.
Connect with Sri on Instagram: @sri_the_warrior_poet + @sri_actually
notes
#45: WALL-ME
Tired of running through brick walls? There may be a better way. Sri discusses when to exercise "tactical patience" and why WALL-E is terribly overrated.
EXPLICIT EPISODE: If you have kids in the car…
#44: Trust the Pro-cess
How do you know when you should stop analyzing and start executing? This is a hard problem, perhaps a philosophical one. Sri takes a stab with help from Canada.
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📌 …
#43: The Happiness Factor
When you're a midshipman at the Naval Academy, you often recalculate something called "the Happiness Factor" to encourage yourself (or torture said self, depending on the circumstances). The idea tha…
#42: The One Thing
Sri discusses the bestselling book The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. Plus, what serving as an altar boy has to do with building assets.
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📌 FEELING STUCK…
#41: ABC, BBD
Sri and The Gang from Always Sunny bring the ABCs of leadership back again from Motown to Philly.
Keith Rabois is a highly successful startup leader, venture capitalist, and member of the Paypal mafi…
#40: Gately's Paradox
Is it possible to choose things you want to believe even if you currently think they're ludicrous? And then even come to actually believe them just by reciting what originally was nonsense?
This is w…
#39: Burned In
"Burning in" is a euphemism for what happens when your parachute doesn't open. In a shorter form than usual Sri muses on what carpe diem really means.
💬 Have a question? Shoot us a text!
📌 FEELING ST…
#38: Massive Attack
Feeling stuck? You can use the tactics for responding to an ambush to propel you in a productive direction (any direction). Sri shows you how.
Plus, the interesting group Massive Attack. And what hos…
#37: McFly
Marty McFly in the Back to the Future movies is the perfect caricature of our own gut reactions to others in life and work. Marty's nemesis, Biff had a recurring line throughout the trilogy: "What's …
#36: Worthless Chorus
Why do we not listen to common sense? Do you ever "discover" lessons that Ben Franklin made catch-phrases of long ago or that your parents preached to you?
Sri suggests ways to better internalize such…