Alexis Ohanian shares tips to conquer greatness and master innovation as a dad and entrepreneur
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the popular social media site Reddit, is sharing his tips and tools to achieve greatness as an entrepreneur, as well as a father and husband.
The 41-year-old tech entrepreneur, who is known for investing in early startups including the women's soccer team Angel City FC, is also married to tennis star Serena Williams and a dad to their two daughters, Alexis Olympia, 6 and Adira River, 11 months.
Ohanian told "GMA" contributor Robin Arzon that he sees greatness as measures of "incremental improvement."
"Small gains daily start to compound massively over years and years and years and years. Your competition is yourself yesterday, a year ago, 10 years ago," Ohanian said. "And while you're in the middle of it, it doesn't really feel like you're necessarily making a lot of progress, but if you continuously improve, day by day, week by week, you look back then five years later, and you're like, 'Look at how much has grown.'"
Read below for more of Ohanian's secrets for how he masters innovation and productivity while balancing his personal and professional lives.
Find your 'zone of genius'
Ohanian said his day "starts with two to three hours of deep work, where there's no meetings, there's no calls."
He added, "I know those couple hours are the highest-protein hours of my day. That's the time when I know I will be most effective."
Others may find a different window that works best for them, saying, "You need to be honest with yourself to figure out where is that time when you can find that 'zone of genius.'"
"The thing that you most fear doing that day is probably the thing you should do first," he added. "That discipline creates freedom ... because it also means 6 p.m. every night, my girls know I'm home for dinner. I'm home 6:05 [p.m.] most nights."
Take that first step and keep going
Ohanian also shared how people who feel stuck can unlock their dreams.
"If you have big ambitions, or even if you're just unhappy with your current situation, take ownership over the fact that you do have control over where you're spending your time and who you're sharing your energy with," he said. "If you can take even a small, incremental step towards some goal that you have, then repeat that step the next day, and then repeat that step the next day."
He continued, "Start training yourself to be addicted to that little bit of progress. That effort makes such a big difference in the long run, but it takes that first step of showing up to do it."
Ohanian said he also tries to teach his kids to get into a similar mindset.
"I've got that on my wall for my little girl … it's a chart of a bunch of things you can control, a bunch of things you can't control," he continued, adding that he talks to his eldest daughter, Olympia, about not giving energy to things she cannot control."
Ohanian continued, "With Olympia, I have tried to instill this appreciation for doing the work to exercise this muscle of showing up and doing the thing so that she can start to appreciate, I hope, the process, and less 'chase the outcome.'"
Lead with community and firmly execute your vision
Ohanian, who is also a general partner and founder of the venture capital film Seven Seven Six, told "GMA" he was able to learn this lesson from witnessing the level of success his wife has achieved in her life.
"I've been very fortunate -- obviously, I had a front-row seat to greatness with my wife," he explained. "What Serena and [her sister] Venus did was demonstrate, unequivocally, that women's sports is as marketable, as valuable, as popular as men's."
Ohanian would go on to become a major investor in women's soccer team Angel City FC - and he shared plans with GMA for his next big investment in women's sports.
"I was starting to get a little excited for the Olympics, and I started noticing more and more track photos, videos, stories goin' viral on social [media]," he said. "And I look for that heat, right? ... And then I started realizing, 'My God, this is just like 2019 with Angel City.' You know, the Women's World Cup was on-deck, everyone was getting excited about it, and it didn't make any sense that people wouldn't get to see these amazing women outside of a World Cup every four years."
Ohanian says he recognized an opportunity to elevate women's track.
Earlier this month, Ohanian announced his new project "Athlos" -- a new groundbreaking track event that will bring together the fastest women in the world including Olympian Gabby Thomas.
Ohanian said the event will be held this year in New York on Sept 26.
"You're gonna experience the sport in a way it should be, not just during the Olympics, to create more access for fans, to be able to not just see these women when they're on the track, but also really get to know them as individuals," he said of the event.
Talk about work-life balance, especially as a dad
In May, Ohanian launched his podcast "Business Dad," where he interviews the biggest names in their respective industries, discussing how they manage work-life balance.
"I felt like I had entered a new club when I became a father, because I started having conversations with other men who I really respected as leaders in their field, who now could start talking to me about things that, like, we didn't talk about before," he said. "And my big takeaway was, 'Why aren't these conversations happening more often, or more publicly? ... They never get asked. There's never a platform for it.."
Describing his new podcast, Ohanian added, "These are men who want to be the best at what they do professionally, and they want to be the best at what they do as a dad and as a husband, and what's wrong with that?"
