Simon Sinek
Appearances
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Now, where it gets dangerous is when we, and this breaks psychological safety, is when leaders keep things for themselves, right? Like, listen, I'm not going to give you your bonus, but you should see mine, right?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so we see that one of the reasons companies break trust with employees, it's actually really interesting if you're into this kind of stuff, if you're a nerd like me, there's actually an anthropological theory constant, there's an anthropological reason we have leaders. This is why, quote unquote, leaderless movements or leaderless organizations don't work.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
which actually violates our anthropology. So if we go back many thousands of years, early Homo sapien, so we've been farming only for about 10,000 to 12,000 years. That's it. But prior to that, we lived in populations that were rarely bigger than about 150,000. This is where Dunbar's number come from if you're into that kind of stuff. Anyway, we lived in these populations about 150, 200 people.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And, you know, we all have to kind of work together and help each other out because it's dangerous, right? And these are austere times. So the hunter-gatherers go out and they get food. And we're all pretty hungry. When you're living with 150, 200 people and you bring food back to the tribe, who eats first?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
If you're the guy who's built like a football player, you can shove your way to the front of the line. But if you're the quote unquote artist of the family, you're going to get an elbow in the face. Now, this is a bad system of cooperation because if you punched me in the face this afternoon, the odds are pretty high I'm not going to wake you and alert you to danger tonight.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so we evolved into hierarchical animals. We're constantly assessing and judging each other who's higher in whatever the pecking order is. And every different group and every different tribe has different standards. And in companies, we have a formal pecking order. There's a leadership, there's a structure, there's a hierarchy. And if you're higher in the hierarchy,
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
you get special treatment, right? So in the tribes, go back way when, if we assess that you were the alpha in the tribe, we stepped back and allowed you to eat first. So leaders, alphas got first choice of meat and first choice of mate. And I may not get to eat first, but I definitely get food and I don't get an elbow in the face. Good system. And that system is alive and well today.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Like we don't have a single problem that somebody higher in the system makes a higher salary than me. I may think they're an idiot, but no one is morally offended that somebody more senior makes a higher salary, gets a better parking space or a corner office. It offends no one. However, the group is not stupid. We don't give first choice of meat and first choice of mate.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
We don't give all these perks to our alphas, to our leaders for free. There's a deep-seated social contract that when danger threatens the tribe, the people who are actually better fed, the people who are actually smarter, actually stronger, there's an expectation that they are going to be the ones that will rush towards the danger to protect the rest of us.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
That's why we gave first choice of mate, because we want to keep your genes in the gene pool in case you die. We're not stupid. And this is where things get haywire in the modern world, right? We don't have a problem that somebody more senior makes a lot more money than me. That's fine. I got no problem with that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
The problem is that when danger threatens the tribe, when we have a bad economy or a bad quarter or something happens, and then we use mass layoffs so that the leaders can protect their bonuses. That's when we have problems of trust. What we want to see is that our leaders will make a short-term sacrifice to protect our interests, not sacrifice our lives to protect their short-term interests.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And it literally goes against our very anthropology, our very nature as human beings. That's where you have huge, huge trust issues inside organizations.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So, I mean, we have to be very careful, right? And you're 100% right. And what starts to happen is we start to conflate all these different things that are happening, which is you're not prioritizing me. You're violating my boundaries. I want to work from home. And what the leaders are saying is, look, here are the rules of the tribe.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
The rules of the tribe are we want you to work five days a week. If you don't like the rules of our tribe, you will do much better at a different tribe. Right? But if you're okay with the rules of our tribe, welcome and we will take care of you and you will take care of us. And this is why the best organizations are values-based organizations.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Basically values-based organizations say is if you share our values, then we will make a deal and look out for each other. If you violate our values and you prove yourself to be uncoachable, then we will politely ask you to go work at another company. And as we as employees say, hey, leaders, values are not just things we write on the walls. Values are things that we expect you to uphold as well.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And if you violate the values, then I have the right to leave. And I also have the right to raise my hand and ask what's going on. We assume good intent always. We assume good intent. And so we want to work in values-based organizations where the leaders and the people, because those are the rules of the tribe. Right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So in this modern day and age, what we very often see, unfortunately, is money prioritized over people. And you can look at, I mean, insurance is the big topic right now, you know, after the assassination of the CEO of United Healthcare. And you and I live in Los Angeles.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And insurance is a thing, right? This is what we're all talking about now.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So you're going to start seeing these questions, right? So when a company announces record profits... and then refuses to pay out on a policy, we start raising our hand and saying, hold on, what's the point of having insurance? And if they start prioritizing their shareholders, over their customers, then we get to raise our hand and say, hold on, what's going on?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And it's okay for a company to say, hey, shareholders, we made no profit this month because we had to take care of Los Angeles, but our finances are strong and this is an anomaly, right? It doesn't make sense how you should have maximum profit when we have a huge tragedy like this. So you're going to start seeing these stories play out
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
know and we'll see whether the insurance companies can prove themselves to be trustworthy or untrustworthy are they prioritizing their short-term interests with our well-being or they're prioritizing our well-being to protect their short-term interests we'll soon find out great leaders understand this and we've seen great leaders one of my favorite great leaders bob chapman ceo barry waymiller during the 2008 recession where companies like his were laying off people all over the place
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Bob Chapman made a public announcement to his company that says no one will get laid off. However, we're going to ask people to take four weeks of unpaid leave. He said, better we should all suffer a little than anyone should have to suffer a lot.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so you start to see, it doesn't mean you can't try and save money, but doing it at the sacrifice of someone's livelihood is a last resort, not a first choice.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
We have to be very careful, which is this form of capitalism we have right now is not the capitalism that made America great. This is not the capitalism that Adam Smith wrote about. This is not the capitalism that Thomas Jefferson was enthralled with.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
This form of capitalism is relatively recent, and it's born out of the philosophies of an economist named Milton Friedman, and he theorized capitalism. that the responsibility of business is to maximize profit within the bounds of the rules. In other words, if you follow the law, maximize profit. What about ethics? That's a very low standard.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
We see CEOs dragged in front of Congress all the time for doing horrible things, right? Some drug company raises the price of an essential drug that they have the patent on 1,000%. And they always say the same thing. We broke no laws. No, you didn't. but you're an ass, right? Like we all know that, it's obvious. The ethical standard is pretty low, right?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so this form of capitalism, this definition of the responsibility of business was embraced in the 1980s and 90s. And that's where you started to see the rise of things like mass layoffs. Do you know that mass layoffs on an annualized basis didn't exist in the United States prior to the 1980s? It was existential only.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Like the company's going out of business, we got a layoff, you know, 20% of the workforce. Now it's like, We missed our profits. We're profitable, just not as much as we wanted to, so you get to lose your job. That didn't exist. The concept of shareholder supremacy and short-termism, it's all relatively recent. And so we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Capitalism we like, this version of capitalism we don't like. And I think you're right, which is we talk about the future of work. I think the great irony is the future of work is actually to go back to a time before Milton Friedman. where capitalism was devoted to building great companies and taking care of customers. And if you did that, the shareholder would benefit.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Shareholder came third, not first.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
No, this is very intimidating, but let's get into it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
That's a good scenario. So some people have a high risk tolerance in the company. They're probably a minority. And most people have a lower risk tolerance. In other words, fear. And when a company or CEO announces a bold new initiative, what most people hear is, how is this going to affect me? Am I at risk? And the reason we get pushback or sabotage
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
for quote unquote bold new initiatives, it's not because people disagree, it's because they're afraid, right? People fear sudden change. And so bold initiatives have to be built, not announced. You don't want to make it like a, you know, where it's like a, wait for it, wait for it, ta-da! No, that's a very bad way to do bold initiatives. What you want to do is tell a story over a period of time.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Like, look how well we're doing here. This is very exciting. I think we're good at this. And you get to the point where everybody's starting to think, we could probably push this a little harder. And the day you announce it, everybody's like, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, totally. We've been kind of going down this road.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so it might be bold relative to a few months ago, but it's not bold relative to yesterday. And I think that's really important. Because remember, the bold new initiative was born slowly. It wasn't like a bunch of executives sat in a room the day before and said, you know what we should do? Announce it tomorrow.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
What happened was it was months and somebody made an offhand comment and somebody goes, you know, I was thinking about what you said last night. That's really interesting. I wonder if we could dot, dot, dot. In other words, it took time to get to the bold initiative and then we just announce it to everybody. So you've got to bring people on the journey.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
That's how you do follow through for bold new initiatives.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Great news for the company. And the problem is when there's uncertainty, there's fear. And when there's fear and there's resistance, now you're accused of not being a team player. Now you're accused of not caring about the company. Now you're accused of being a bad employee. And it's none of those things. It's just fear. Fear and uncertainty is all it is.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And this is why a lot of change management is nonsense. You come in and do a deck about how important this change is. It's not bringing people along on the journey and letting them come to that conclusion themselves. It's announcing to people and then pretending that it won't be so bad. Being honest and being realistic, but bringing people on the journey are super, super important.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Let's define what work-life balance means, right? It doesn't mean I work a lot of hours and now I need to go do a bunch of yoga. Like the thing that makes me laugh all the time when companies say, you know, we work hard and play hard. I mean, both of those sound very unhealthy. Work smart, play always is what I say.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so when we treat it like a scale and like we have to take deposits and credits on both sides, it doesn't really work. And it's not based on how hard you work. Working hard for something you don't believe in is called stress. Working hard for something you love is called passion. In both cases, you're working hard. Only in one of those does it feel worth it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Now, there's a difference between recharging your batteries and protecting your health. Like if you've been burning the candle on both ends, yes, you need a vacation. And a vacation means turning off your email, turning off your cell phone, right? Because if you're on email on vacation, you're just telecommuting from a beach. That's not a vacation.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so absolutely, when we talk about the balance, which is like recharge your batteries. But for me, work-life balance is I feel safe at home. I feel like psychologically safe at home and I feel psychologically safe at work. And so my life feels in balance. I feel like the sacrifices I make on both sides are worth it. And it's never perfect.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
There's always going to be some sort of sacrifice somewhere. You can't please everybody all the time. But you're able to manage it and you feel supported at home and you feel supported at work. You feel you're in balance when you can say to your loved ones at home, hey, family. I'm going to take a business trip. I love you all, but I got to do this.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
I know I'm going to miss Friday night sushi night, but I love you all and I got to do this. And then at work, you say, hey, listen, my kid is super sick at home. I'm going to work from home today. This is the balancing. And at home, they go, go ahead, mom, dad, have a great business trip. Where at work, they go, totally understand. Go ahead and work from home today.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And you feel supported from the other. I think that's what balance is.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
It's not work hard player. Sometimes it gets out of balance. You know, so for example, if somebody works on a Saturday, right? All a leader has to do is say, hey, thank you so much for working on Saturday. Why don't you take a day of the week off so I can give you back that day from your weekend? Back in balance.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Okay. Number one, curiosity, right? I think very often in these circumstances, we leap to judgment. And it's hard because we're all judgmental bastards, right? Every single one of us, even the ones who say I'm not judgmental, I judge them. So we're all a little judgy and we have to work hard. It's a skill, just takes practice to try hard to replace the judgment with curiosity.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Thanks for having me.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So first we have to understand what belonging means to them. When somebody says, I don't feel like I belong here, what they're saying is, I don't feel psychologically safe here. Or they're saying, I'm not sure I share the values. Or they're saying, I don't feel seen or heard here. You know, all I know is something is not right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And the problem is when we don't feel like something fits, even we, the ones who don't feel like we belong, sometimes we don't know what the reason is. So we lash out and we're judgy and we're accusatory that you did this and you, but really I'm just uncomfortable and I don't really know why myself. And so we want curiosity and communication on both sides.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So if somebody doesn't feel like they belong, what I want them to do is raise their hands and say, Can I have an uncomfortable conversation with you? I've been dealing with this for a little bit. I thought it was me. I thought I had a bad night's sleep, but it's been going on for a while. And can I just talk it out with you? Which is, I don't know if I belong here.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
I'm struggling for these reasons. And this is the story I'm telling myself. And I'm afraid of this story because I don't know if it's true or not, but I'm going off of it. The person they're talking to from work doesn't correct them. They're trying to understand that. They're trying to see where they can help. They're trying to see what parts are true and what parts are not true.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
But the difficult part is sometimes, especially if you're dealing in a small business, an entrepreneurial venture, and the person you're talking to is the owner, it's so easy to get super defensive. And in almost all of these circumstances, what we see is a breakdown in communication.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And what ends up happening, the reason it gets escalated is because somebody handles the communication badly or somebody responds to the communication badly. And it's kind of like a fight with a loved one, right? Like the number of fights that I had with my girlfriend that went like this. Well, you started it. No, you started it. Well, here's the thing that you did that started it, okay?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And I remember I was having a fight with my girlfriend and I literally interrupted this fight as we were trying to tell each other who started this fight that we were both in. And I said, look, Here's what I know for a fact. One of us definitely started this. And I know we have a different opinion as to who, right? One of us definitely started this. But here's the other thing I know.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
In the mid-1980s, a philosopher and theologian by the name of Dr. James Karst defined these two types of games, finite games and infinite games. A finite game is defined as known players, fixed rules, and an agreed upon objective. Football, baseball. If there's a winner, necessarily there has to be a loser or losers. But more importantly, there's always a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
The other person definitely poured gasoline on it, right? So all I know is we are where we are because we contributed to where we are. So let's just start there. And you can say that at work too. You'd be like, I think that I have handled this badly. Can I have a do-over? And again, that goes right back to the beginning of our conversation of accountability.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
My wheelie bag, my words, my reaction, my defensiveness, my judgment before my curiosity made this worse. I recognize that. I am sorry. Can we start again? But I think belonging is a tricky one because sometimes it's really actually a belonging problem. And sometimes it's just a I'm not sure problem. And I'm looking to grasp to what it might be. And I sometimes latch on to belonging.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
But it might just be that I don't feel seen or heard. Or it might be that I just don't feel valued. It's one that requires unpacking.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Remember, it is human beings in a relationship with human beings. Right? Most people are good. There are a few bastards in the world, but most people are good, right? But what most people lack are human skills, right? Like cats don't have to work very hard to be cats. They're naturally good at being cats, right? Human beings, weirdly enough, are not born being good at human.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
We actually have to study and learn things like listening, how to have difficult conversations, how to resolve conflict, right? Like how to have an effective confrontation. We are not born with these skills. We have to practice and learn these skills in order to have better relationships. It takes a lot of work to be a good human being.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Well, I think it goes back to what we were saying before, right? Which is, you know, I think most people finish at the superficial, which is follow through and say the thing you're going to do. I mean, I fail to follow through on things all the time. And sometimes I'm embarrassed and ashamed. And so I hide it or I'm not upfront or I sort of hedge it and be like, well, I kind of did it, you know?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And what I've learned about follow through is that really it's about managing expectations. And it's okay to say no. It's okay to miss a deadline. It's okay to fail. As long as you give ample notice, and this is the important part, ask for help. And I think the missing part, which is so difficult and so vulnerable for a lot of people, which is I'm struggling here.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And sometimes we realize I don't have a process. Sometimes we realize I'm the wrong person. Sometimes we realize I said yes when I should have said no. Sometimes we realize I'm just stressed. I'm just overworked and I can't do it. Sometimes we realize I got stuff going on at home and I'm so distracted. Sometimes I got a bad night's sleep. There's so many reasons why we don't follow through.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
That what I have learned is that the better the communication and the more comfortable we get asking for help, the irony is you'll get all the credit for all the follow through.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Infinite games are different. Infinite games, there are known and unknown players. So you don't necessarily know who all the players are, and new players can join the game at any time. The rules are changeable, which means every player can play however they want. And the objective is to perpetuate the game, to stay in the game as long as possible.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So you're 100% right, which is the definition of a leader is the awesome responsibility. A leader accepts the awesome responsibility to see those around us rise, right? Now, a position of leadership and being a leader are not the same thing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
You can have a position of leadership, which gives you rank and authority, but it doesn't mean we will follow you and it definitely doesn't mean we'll trust you. You and I both know many people who don't have a position of leadership, but they've made the choice to look after the person to the left of them and make the choice to look after the person to the right of them.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And we trust them and follow them anywhere. They are the leader. And so the first thing to do is be the leader you wish you had. And every great leader I've ever met, regardless of their position or rank, every single one of them considered themselves a student of leadership. None of them think of themselves as experts. And if you're a student of a leadership, that means you listen to podcasts.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
It means you read books. It means you read articles. It means you have conversations with your friends or your mentors about these topics constantly. You're constantly in a learning mode. And so if you want to be a leader, You've got to study and be the leader you wish you had. Take yourself on starting tomorrow. I could be a better listener. I need to learn how to be more curious.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
I need to learn how to better communicate. I need to learn how to have an effective confrontation. I need to learn how to have difficult conversations. You've got to take yourself on. Plenty, plenty of resources and very smart people out there who can help you.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
At the end of the day, it's what we want, right? When we don't have it, what we feel is lonely. And we know there's a loneliness epidemic right now. And you can't... It's hard. But we know that trust matters. We know that friends matter. We know that colleagues matter. We know that relationships matter.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And the more that we can say, I don't know, or I need help, the more that we can put ourselves out there. And the irony about trust is that you don't actually build trust by offering help. You build trust by asking for it. And the more that we can ask for help,
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
for difficult things or easy things, for work things or personal things, for things that there are clear answers to and for things that there are not clear answers to. The more that we can do that, the more that we build trust, the more that we feel like we belong, the more that we feel cared for, seen and heard and understood.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So we are players in infinite games every day of our lives, whether you know it or not. Nobody will win marriage. You'll never be number one in marriage. It doesn't exist, right? Nobody will ever win healthcare or education. You can come in first for the finite amount of time that you're in school where we agree upon the metrics called grades, but nobody wins education. Nobody wins career.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
I'm going to sound like a broken record. I think great companies recognize that 100% of customers are people, 100% of employees are people, 100% of investors are people. And if you don't understand people, you don't understand business.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And definitely no such thing as winning business. But if we listen to the language of so many people, it becomes very clear that they don't know the game they're playing in. You hear so many people talk about being number one, being the best, beating their competition. Based on what? based upon what agreed upon objectives, metrics, and timeframes.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And this is a problem, because when we play with a finite mindset in an infinite game, when we play to win in a game that has no finish line, there are some very predictable and consistent outcomes. The big ones are the decline of trust, the decline of cooperation, and the decline of innovation.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Exactly. All I have to say is how's that working out for you?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So, I mean, everybody knows how to do this stuff, right? This is the funny thing about trust. First of all, let's be crystal clear. Trust is a feeling. You can't order someone to trust you. It doesn't work. You can't instruct someone, tell someone, you can trust me, trust me. It doesn't work that way.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
A trust is a feeling, and that feeling is produced naturally when, as human beings, we recognize that the people who are trying to build our trust are open and honest with us, that they consider our needs, our feelings, our desires, that they wouldn't sacrifice us to protect their own short-term selfish interests. We know how to do this. We know how to make friends.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
We know how to build relationships. You know, if people keep secrets, if people are shady, if people aren't upfront, if people don't take accountability, you're allowed to screw up. You just have to say sorry and admit the thing that you did that made somebody suffer or feel a certain way. And if we do this, we build trust. Some people are willing to give trust sooner than others.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
There's no right speed to do it. Some are quick, some are slow, but we have to be consistent in doing all of these very normal human things in order to build trust. It's always funny to me that people think that it's different at work than it is in any other kind of relationship.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And look, I understand that all of these relationship dynamics are not the same. There's the formal hierarchy in a work relationship. I would say there's not necessarily a formal hierarchy in personal relationships, but it depends on your relationship. Sometimes there's definitely a boss in that relationship.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Exactly. There are rules. But the point is, even though the places in which the relationships exist and the dynamics may be different, it's still human beings attempting to feel psychologically safe with other human beings.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
I mean, I love the way you phrased that, which is, you know, how can a leader be consistent and follow through? The answer is be consistent and follow through. What's important to acknowledge when we talk about consistency is really there's two dynamics. There's intensity and there's consistency, right? Intensity tends to be just that short, easily measured, you know, fixed in time consistency.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So let's go to the dentist. I can make an appointment to go to the dentist. I know I have to go twice a year. I know pretty much what's going to happen. And it's an intense experience, and it's a beginning, the middle, and its end, and it's over. And to be healthy, to have healthy teeth and healthy gums, you have to go to the dentist twice a year, right?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
But if that's all you did, all your teeth would fall out. The intensity is not enough. The consistency is what keeps your teeth healthy. You have to brush your teeth every single day for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening. Now, what does brushing your teeth for two minutes do? It does absolutely nothing unless you do it all the time.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
But what if I'm tired and I don't feel like brushing my teeth and I wanna go to bed? Can I do that? Yes, you can. Well, how many nights can I take off? I don't know and neither does any dentist. And so it's the same in human dynamics. You can't repair trust with intensity alone. Like you can't screw up and violate someone's trust and then simply buy them flowers and everything's good.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
You can't simply get down and say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and everything's fine. Those are intense experiences. You still may need to do those things, but it's the little things that by themselves actually do very little, but done over time, demonstrate that you can repair any kind of broken trust if you need to.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So for example, you take any kind of relationship, let's take a business, really a work relationship where you're kind of shady and don't tell somebody about a client because you want to get the commission and you guys share all the time and this one time you didn't because you got a little greedy that month, right? And your friend is like, WTF, we share everything.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And we know that sometimes I win a little more and sometimes you win a little more, but we help each other out and it all evens out in the wash. WTF, like now you're just putting yourself ahead of me. I can't trust you anymore, right? and sending them one client that month doesn't fix it. It's gonna have to be A, going back to the way it was, and you're gonna have to amp it up a little bit.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
You're gonna have to sort of even be more vulnerable and show even more stuff and give away even more to rebuild that trust and then do it consistently. And it may take a week, it may take a month, it may take longer. There's no right amount of time for trust to be restored for a couple of reasons. One is, depends on the violation, But it also depends on the other person.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
That person may have had this happen every single time, so now they just don't trust anybody. And to have these honest conversations, what can I do to restore trust? What specifically do you need from me to restore trust? You have to have that conversation. It's an uncomfortable conversation. You can't be defensive. Sometimes the person knows and sometimes the person doesn't know.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And we take accountability. I screwed up. I am sorry. I got greedy. And you're absolutely right. I violated the trust that you and I had built. And if I were in your position, I would feel the same way. I did that. You can't be like, well, I had a busy month and I've got bills. Excuses don't work. Accountability works. That's the first step in rebuilding trust is accountability.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Saying you're sorry doesn't mean you're wrong. Saying you're sorry means you recognize that your words or your actions cause some sort of negative effect in somebody else's life, even if it's just hurting their feelings, right? The minute you add the word but after I'm sorry, literally, grammatically, what but does is it negates the thing before it. I'm sorry, but literally means I'm not sorry.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Sorry with an excuse like, sorry, but you know what that's, you know, it's like what's going on. No. And the analogy I give is if you're in the airport with your wheelie bag heading to the gate, you accidentally run over someone's foot. You're going to turn around to them and you're going to be like, I'm so sorry. Why? Because it's your wheelie bag. Clearly, you didn't do it on purpose. Right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
But it's your wheelie bag. Now, can you imagine if you ran over someone's foot and you just stood there and they look at you and go, you ran over my foot and you say, I didn't do it on purpose. A fight would ensue. Right. And so all we're saying is, is that your words and your actions are the wheelie bag. It's okay if you didn't intend it. It happened.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so you have to take accountability for your words and your actions, even if you didn't intend it. That's just called, you know, sort of normal functioning society. Just like you would immediately apologize for your wheelie bag, you immediately have to apologize for your words and actions if they cause someone discomfort or pain.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And it's so common, right? People like, you know, when people like, why didn't you apologize? Like, well, I didn't mean to do it. I understand that, but you still did it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So follow through is about expectations, right?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So we set expectations and are we fulfilling those expectations? Yes. and follow through the ability to fulfill the expectations that you set are some of the steps that you take to build trust. Also being clear about when you can't follow through. So the thing that I struggle with the most my personal life and my professional life, which is I'm trying to make it work for everybody.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
So five friends say to me, are you free on Saturday? I don't want to say no to anybody. So I make five plans. You're from nine to 11. You're from 1130, right? And of course, that's not how it works. I end up running late. There ends up being traffic. I end up missing one. I end up pushing the others. And now I've got three pissed off people, right? In other words, my follow through suck there.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so sometimes the discipline to manage expectations is to simply say, I cannot do that. I won't agree to it. So can I see you Saturday? No. No, because I will let you down. The odds are too high. Or, hey, Simon, will you do my taxes for me? No, no, I will not. It will not go well. You will go to jail if I do your taxes. Right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And so I think follow through is only partially the execution, which is the obvious part. Do the thing you say you're going to do. but it's also managing expectations and giving people heads up before you let them down. Because part of follow-through is not just the actual doing of it. It's letting people know that they need a backup plan.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Like, hey, I know I said I could do this for you by Thursday. It's Tuesday now. I can already see I'm not going to get to it. I would argue that that's a successful follow-through because you can work with somebody or allow them to figure out a backup plan. So communication... an expectation setting, I think helps people follow through more or not just simply fulfilling the actions.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
Because I'd rather somebody tell me they're not going to do a good job than do a half-assed job, but hey, I did it on time, quote unquote.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
I followed through. I'm like, yeah, technically, yes. Technically, yeah.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek
And sometimes, look, we're all guilty of it. Like, hey, at the end of this year, you're definitely going to get a raise, but the numbers aren't working out. We can't afford a raise. And I said, I know I said I'd give you a raise and I feel awful, but let me show you the numbers.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I'm not going to move the goalposts anymore because if I keep moving the goalposts, I'm never going to be satisfied.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
No, it's nothing to do with the goal early. It's now you get to, you've got the thing that you wanted and now you get to design a life that you want. Irrespective. You don't have to pursue winning anymore. The win has happened. You can look back at the goalposts and be like, I did the main thing I wanted. I did it. So whether it's
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
whether it's the Olympics or starting a family or starting a business, whether it succeeds or fails, right? I did it. And now I'm gonna design a life, you know, that I wanna live beyond. And it's relative to however anybody else wants to define the win. Right. Do you feel like you've, gotten the win for yourself? I've had to learn, it was a lesson that I learned this year.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And it's a friend of mine who said it to me, because it was Teddy Roosevelt who said, comparison is the thief of joy. And I love the way he put that, the thief of joy, it steals joy. If you keep comparing yourself to other people and what they've achieved, That act of comparison literally will steal joy from you.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You will never be satisfied with what you have because you will always find somebody who's richer, better looking, got a nicer house, a net better car, a better looking girlfriend or boyfriend, better vacations, you know, whatever it is. 100% of the time, 100% of the time. And the metrics are completely, like if you and I started comparing our metrics to each other, right?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
If I looked at your podcast audience views, I'd be like, I'm a failure. Lewis' feeling pulls me out of the water. I'm a failure. But if I change the metric to LinkedIn followers, Who's your daddy? I got you. Crushing it, yeah. I'm crushing you, right? Oh, but let's make it book sales. Or let's make it... Intellect. Household income. Whatever.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And like, I can feel depressed or I can feel elated just by simply changing where I'm looking. That's exhausting, right? And so I think what ends up happening is we focus on the one that is competitive. Well, I'm going to get more followers than Lewis. I'll show him. And I go ahead. I'm like, Yahtzee! But... If I just look over here, I'm a loser again.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And I think that's what I mean by winning, right? Which is, I kept changing what I was looking at. I would be, I'm like, I'm doing great. And then I'd change what I'm looking at or change who I'm looking at. I'm like, oh, you know? And it was a friend of mine who said to me, Simon, you've won. Stop it. Stop it.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I think there are times where I make no comparisons and I'm very satisfied. And there are times for whatever reason, bad night's sleep, feeling a little insecure. Yeah. It sneaks in. Ah, why is this person this and this? It sneaks in. It sneaks in. It sneaks in.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It sneaks in. Yeah, I think it's unavoidable. And that's why this, I don't actually believe in winning or losing. I mean, you know that about me. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a rhetorical trick. It's a rhetorical trick. It's another way of saying, just be grateful. You're fine.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Like I set out to contribute to the world and I made strategic decisions that my contribution would be bigger than me. And it has been big. So for example, people who come up with ideas They put a little TM on whatever they call their idea. Always. On their website. Trademark. A little trademark. Which basically means, don't touch, this is mine. Mine. I want everybody to know it's mine.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I own this idea. I own this idea. It's my IP. Everybody knows what IP is. Right? And I never did that. You'll never see a TM on the term golden circle. You'll never see a TM on the concept of why. And you'll never see a TM on the physical drawing of the golden circle. Do I technically own all of those intellectual properties? Of course. Right? Usage. You own it just with usage.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But I never put a TM in it because I cared more that people used the idea than knew where it came from. And people do use the idea and not know where it comes from. And I don't... pursue anybody who uses it... Without crediting you. Without crediting, I don't care. Because credit wasn't the thing I was in pursuit of. It was impact that I was in pursuit of.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So I made strategic choices to help drive impact rather than to help drive credit.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I don't judge anybody's choices for their own lives. And as we said before, there's always a cost. The question is, is the cost worth it to you? So for me, the cost came in, you know, I probably could have made more money. I probably could have, who knows what, right? And that wasn't, that was fine. That was, for me, that was a worthwhile cost, you know, because I was driven more by impact.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Yeah, so I guess the question is, do you have any regrets? Yes, the simple answer is I do. I don't have regrets for mistakes. I have regrets for repeating mistakes. What was the biggest mistake you repeated? One of the biggest mistakes is I trusted somebody I shouldn't have trusted. because they knew more than I did.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And I doubted in my gut and said, well, they've got more experience than me, I have to trust them. And then I tried to fire them and they talked me out of it. And then I continued to do business with this person who continued to screw me over and over again. Really? And he is a taker. He's an astonishing taker. How long was that going on for?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I should have trusted my gut the first time and ended the relationship.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Yeah. Self-doubt.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Self-doubt. Uh, nothing short of, uh, I'm not good at that, that person has experienced. I should trust them. Other people said I should trust them. I don't trust them, but I should trust them. So I'm going to trust them because everybody said I should trust them, even though my guts said don't trust them.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And when I came to the realization, like this person is not trustworthy, I'm going to fire them and I don't want them helping me anymore. And I tried to, and they talked me out of it. I wasn't smart enough on how to change a contract.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So I think that's a great framing. It was the, what I should have done, I was afraid of setting myself, I was afraid of not having that kind of support. I was afraid of not knowing what to do without this person. I was afraid that I wasn't smart enough or didn't know how to navigate this industry without this person that's by my side.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And what I should have done is just, it's like, it's like, it's like when you're sitting on the couch and you're overweight and all you do is watch TV and eating ice cream for every meal. At some point you go, I gotta get into shape. And you make the decision to get into shape. And the thing you didn't expect is how much it hurts. Painful. How much it hurts to start getting into shape.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Once you start, it gets easier. But to start to get into shape really hurts. And I think I sat on that couch fearing the pain of getting extracted from this. And if I had to do it all over again, I would put myself in the pain and I would go ask somebody else for help.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Yeah, true.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I think this opens up whole can of worms that my ex-girlfriend would say is the problem. I'm too, I'm too in my head. I think you just solved all the problems. What makes my heart hurt?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I hate, I don't like bullies. I was never bullied as a kid. So it's not like, it's not some childhood thing. I just don't like it when the strong pick on the weak. Um, that doesn't mean they have to help them, but they don't have to pick on them, you know? And like, I've been in meetings where somebody is being a bully and I know, I know what it is. They're insecure. They're a bit compensating.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Maybe we bullied themselves. You're supposed to show some empathy. I can't. It really upsets me. I'd be like, why don't we let somebody else talk now, Steve? All right, thank you, Julie. I think Lewis is trying to say something. I kind of help myself. You care about fairness. I care about fairness. I think it's an ADHD thing.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Somebody told me that ADHD kids have an over-exaggerated sense of fairness. Interesting. Yeah.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I trust my gut. I mean, with the one exception that I'm telling you about, I'm pretty good at trusting my gut. And it might take me a couple iterations to be able to articulate it or figure out how to say it to other people, but I'm pretty good at trusting my gut. It's not always right, but you know, it's done me okay.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And I think a lot of people who we look to for guidance will offer very similar advice, trust your gut, you know? And I think we have to understand what gut is. Gut is the... It's your limbic brain. It's not actually your stomach. It's where all your values exist. It's where your beliefs exist. And the limbic brain controls all of our feelings.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It controls all of our behavior, but it doesn't control language, which is why it's hard to put our feelings into words, right? It's why we use analogies and metaphors all the time. You know, it's hard to express anger. It's hard to express love. It's hard to express our feelings. It's hard to express frustration. Right.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And so we use, we use analogies and metaphors or sometimes we just say stupid things or we use, or we use, you know, banal tropes. We send memes to each other because somebody else has said it better. We send quotes that we saw online because this person perfectly captures what I've been trying to tell you. So that's what we do.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And so I think before you can trust your gut, you have to have a clear sense of what your values are. You have to have a clear sense of what you believe in. Because otherwise, I'm not sure your gut is a good compass.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I think that what we see What we see in our country, our country is a ship without a rudder and has been for many years. This is not a Republican or Democrat thing. Under both Republicans and Democrats, we've been kind of like out at sea, kind of just going with the wind.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And, you know, we can probably trace it to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, where we knew who we were and we knew who we were against.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You know, there's a great irony in this, right? Which is America without competition is a monopoly. And monopolies, as capitalists, we don't like monopolies, right? Because we know monopolies stifle competition. They know we're not good for the consumer, not good for the employee. Like we don't like monopolies.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We like viable competitors because we think competition, this is our fundamental belief in Adam Smith economics. We fundamentally believe that competition is good for the consumer and good for the employee, right? And it's good for society. And so an America without a competitor is not a great America, right?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And I think we've been pretty rudderless and I'm uncomfortable with this, but we need competition. It's called an enemy, but we really need a peer or greater than peer competitor. Why do we need competition? Because a competitor in the most basic, simple way helps you know the things you stand for It's kind of like, you're in business, you sometimes have to look at design.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
What's the design of this mug? What's the design of this website? And you don't really know what you want until you see it, you know, I don't want that.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Right, you don't know until you can see it. And then it's obvious, but you couldn't give anybody the instructions to get you to that and not do that. And so it's really annoying for the people who show you stuff because you make them do all this work for them to go, absolutely not that, I know that, right? But sometimes you have to see it to know it, right?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And like people who always come to me like, do you want this or this? Like, I don't know, show me and I'll tell you. Let me hear it and I'll tell you which song I like better. Let me taste it and I'll tell you which meal I like better. Like I have to try it, see it, touch it to know it, right?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And I think that the easiest way to know your values is to see the thing that stands in the way of your values. And so you know what you stand for when you can see the thing standing in the way. Now, there's a nuance here, which is really important, which is
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Truly having vision and belief is you see the quote unquote enemy or the competitor as the thing standing in the way of you getting the thing that you want. But simply having an enemy being against things is really easy to rile people up and really easy to get them going. But what's beyond that wall? What's beyond that obstacle? So let's take a commercial example.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Apple used to stand for the individual creative freedom, you know, that's what it stood for. And it didn't like incumbency, status quo, or slow corporate, blah, right? So when Apple started, the thing standing in the way of them advancing their vision was IBM. Well, IBM became a non-thing anymore. And then the thing standing in the way of them becoming their thing was Microsoft.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Hi, I'm a Mac, I'm a PC. But you can see the values remain the same. Great commercials. But the obstacles to them achieving their values, the status quo, the norm, the anti-creativity, they could easily keep changing who the competitor was, but the vision remained the same. What was beyond that competitor remained the same.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It's very tempting to have the competitor, to have the enemy, but not know what's beyond the wall because it's very exciting, right? And so be careful what you wish for because what happens if that enemy goes away and now you're like, and now what? Now what do we do? Right? And you can see it in our nation. We're a nation in clearly not knowing who we are or what we stand for.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We don't know who our competitors are, right? uh where it's not communists versus democracies and capitalists anymore because now it's all a mess right um so that's not it it's something else and you can see in the population people desperately pursuing something to give them the feeling of belonging So on the left or the right of the political aisle.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So whether it's anti-Israel on one side of the political spectrum, it's anti-vax on the other side of the political spectrum, you can see people glomming onto something that is exciting and they get all the feels. They have create community, they create friendship, they have a sense of purpose. They've never felt like this before. They're making friends. They feel like their life matters.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
People understand them. They feel understood in their circles. It's amazing. Until it goes away. And then what? And so you can see kind of people bouncing from thing to thing. And none of those things last for very long. I mean, they could be measured in many, many years. They could measure in months or years, but it's not lifetimes.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Like communism versus capitalist democracy, that was generations. That was worthy of going to war. You know? It was also the thing that made the left and the right come together, which is, we hate each other, but we hate that more. Let's stand together against that common enemy. We don't have that anymore. We don't have that anymore. It's all against each other.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It's all against each other, which is how empires fall. Empires fall from within. You know, the empires collapse. It's an act of suicide, not... Yeah. So empires collapse from within, where we go at each other's throats and our enemies are just loving it.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And you can see it now, whether it's the Iranians or the Russians or whoever, North Koreans, whoever is screwing around with our social media, they're not inventing any conflict. They're amplifying the conflicts that exist. They're finding the things that we're at each other's throats for, and they're screwing around on social media to turn the volume way up. They're not creating anything.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
All right. Well, that one's different because not a single person, when they achieve the thing that they achieve, will ever, ever, ever say that was worth it. None. Zero. I've talked to so many people who decided grades, career, money. I don't need friends. I just need people who can help me achieve my goals. And the result is loneliness. Yes. I mean, you know this as an athlete, right?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
They're amplifying all of it. And so we hate each other, and we're at each other's throats. And all the noise in social media is not even all of our own noise. It's agitators. And then you realize... But doesn't that bring people together too?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
If we can recognize that that's happening, if we can recognize the group that's doing it to us and why they're doing it to us and what they don't like about us that we should be standing up for, which I don't think anybody can actually articulate very clearly right now. And we haven't had a world leader. We haven't had a president who's done it since probably the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You know? Every Republican and Democrat has kind of gone insular. Our presidents used to talk about world peace. They don't talk about world peace anymore. It sounds corny and cheesy. There's no existential threat to the United States, but there is, that's the thing. It's just not easy to understand. Wow. What's the problem with capitalism then? So capitalism is good, but not the version we have.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Adam Smith capitalism, which is competition, is ultimately good for the customer and the employee. And, you know, the baker who selfishly wants to make the best bread and the butcher who selfishly wants to make the best meat and the dairy farmer who selfishly wants to make the best cheese gives you the best sandwich. Right? That's how capitalism is supposed to work.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
How have we gotten away from that? You know, you blame the 70s and 80s. You blame the rise of Milton Friedman, who was an economist who theorized that the responsibility of business was to maximize profit within the bounds of the rules and the bounds of law. Well, what happened to ethics? The law is a very low bar. Sure. Right? Ethics is a much higher bar. Right?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Like, there's a recent thing that's happening now. I think it's happening in Texas. where, I've forgotten the guy's name, where he's pointed out that the exact same products in India or Europe or Canada have fewer and healthier ingredients than the exact same product in the United States. Kali and casein means, yeah. Yeah. And then ours are filled with chemicals. Yeah.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Where there's like a candy bar, like the exact same candy bar. Like if I eat a Kit Kat in England and I eat a Kit Kat here, a Kit Kat here is made with partially hydrogenated oils, palm oil, and high fructose corn syrup. There it's made with butter and sugar. So it's less bad. And when Kellogg's was interviewed, like WTF, their answer was, we obey all local laws. Like really? That's your go-to?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Your go-to is we follow the law? Like that's what you're going to stick with? What about ethics? What about civic responsibility? What about maybe it's okay to lose a little margin to be good for society, but you're gonna go with, until they change the laws, we're just gonna follow the laws. Like what a low bar to go through life, right?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I mean, can you imagine cheating on your girlfriend and she brings it up to you, be like, it's not against the law. Right. Can't cheat on your wife. That's against the law. Yeah, yeah. We would be together. Cheat on your girlfriend. Not against the law. Right. We didn't sign a marriage contract yet. I don't owe you anything.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Low bar. Right. And so I think the rise, Adam Smith capitalism, which is the capitalism that made America great. It is not really existent anymore.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We have a Jack Welch, Milton Friedman capitalism, where we prioritize the shareholder over the customer and the employee, where we prioritize the quarter over the survival of the business, where short-termism became everything and shareholder supremacy became everything. We started using people to manage the books. We use mass layoffs. to meet our quarterly or annual projections.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We're profitable, just not as profitable as we promised Wall Street, so you get to lose your job. Sorry, nothing personal, it's just business. And so capitalism is very broken. And I think the danger is that people are trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater. They're trying to throw out all capitalism because the system that we're in really is screwed up. But capitalism is awesome.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
This version of capitalism is terrible. This version of capitalism is run by finance bros who speak in tongues that I definitely can't understand them. And by the way, I don't think they can understand me sells most of the time. And the stock market, the stock market was invented so that the average working American could partake in the wealth of a nation.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And the stock market exists for the middle class. The middle class is barely in the stock market anymore. It is now the playground of the 1%. And they are using our national institutions for their own personal gain. And then, I mean, just talk to any finance bro talk to any of them and you say, what societal good are you doing? What contribution are you making to society?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Look at Olympic, look at Olympians, right? Especially individual sports, individual athletes. Team sports, it's not really the same thing. which is they have a dream when they're fairly young and their dream is to, and you know how they put it, win the Olympics. Nobody wins the Olympics, right? That's how I'm gonna win the Olympics, right? And every relationship they have is, can you help me?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
They all say the same nonsense. We're contributing to the economy and we're helping provide jobs. Then why are you okay with mass layoffs if you care so much about job production? You care so much about job production, why aren't you fighting tooth and nail to make layoffs only a last resort, not a first line of defense? Right? It's all rationalizing. It's just personal profit. That's all it is.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And last line of defense, not first, not first. Layoffs, I'm not against them as long as they're existential. How many CEOs of public companies who missed their quarterly results? They're profitable. It's not like they're losing money. They promised X percent and they made X minus 4%. And they're getting battered by the analyst class whose bonuses depend on not the success of your company.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That's the problem. You're making an existential argument. I'm making, we're not as profitable as we promised argument. Not to mention the fact, Fine. Let's stick with, I don't even care. We're not as profitable as we promised. Fine. Let's just go with that. Right? As opposed to just saying, ah, we missed our numbers. Oh, well, we'll do better next time, guys. Like, let's figure out what we did.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Let's try again. Right? How many of them have gone and said, look, huge pressure on me from Wall Street. Huge pressure on me. I don't even think you understand the pressure on me. They're pushing me to do layoffs. They tell me I got to cut expenses by 10%. I don't want to. So I want you all to go. Hey, my senior leaders, I want you to go to all of your divisions.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I want you to go to your front lines. Go to your junior people, your mid-rank, your middle management, and tell them this. We have to cut 10% and I don't want to do it with people. Find me 10%. Go find me 10%. Because if we can't find 10%, the pressure's overwhelming. I might have to cut heads and I don't want to. How many CEOs have done that?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
How many CEOs have asked their frontline teams to help them? No, none. None? No, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. Look at the entire function of human resources. Your average CHRO gets bonused by how efficiently they did the layoffs. Incorrect. Incorrect. An HR person is supposed to be at the executive table as the voice of the employee.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And when the CEO or more likely the CFO goes, I think we need to cut off 10% of our workforce, blah, blah, blah. That CHRO is supposed to say, don't you touch my people. You find that money somewhere else. Interesting. That's not what's happening. They go, aye, aye, sir. Layoffs done efficiently. No, the whole thing's screwed up. No wonder people are upset.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
No wonder young people are voting for populists on the left or the right, whether it's Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. I understand the rise of populism. It's because the system isn't working for the average working American on both sides of the aisle. That's why we see a rise of populism because we reject populism. We reject the system that we're currently living in.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Are you gonna help me? And individual athletes, tennis players, I mean, they're very similar. Like every relationship they have is, are you gonna benefit my dream? And if not, then I have no space for you. And they don't really have friendships. They have transactional relationships, coaches, trainers, a supportive parent.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
There's no perfect system.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
What did Churchill say? Democracy, what did he say? Democracy is a terrible form of government, but it's better than all the others. Right. The worst form of government, but it's better than all the rest, whatever he said. I mean, someone's always gonna be sad, suffering, hurt, losing opportunities. Churchill said it best, right? The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
The inherent virtue of communism is the equal sharing of miseries.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Right, your unequal sharing of misery is an unequal sharing of blessings. And we have opted for an unequal sharing of blessings. That's just the system we've picked. That's what... There's some who'll do really well. There's some who will do not really well. You could argue that it's unfair. You might be right. But the most important thing is the middle.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
The most important thing is the middle class. The bigger the middle class, the more stable a society is. When the middle class starts to dissipate and starts to go away, and you start having the haves and the have-nots, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider and wider, in 100% of those times, what you get is revolution. Every single time.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Because we don't particularly have problems with people making more money than us. This goes back to anthropology as well. It's the anthropology of leaders. Have we ever talked about this? I don't think so. So we are social animals, right? And for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, We lived in tribes that were rarely bigger than about 150 people.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We only started farming about 10 or 12,000 years ago, and we can start to sustain populations larger than about 150, 200 people, right? So we lived as subsistence hunters-gatherers for tens of thousands of years in populations no bigger than 150-ish people.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But there's some very practical problems, which is what if you bring food, austere conditions, you're a hunter and you bring food back to the tribe, we're all hungry, we all rush in to eat. Well, if you're built like you're built, like an athlete, and I'm the artist of the family, and we're all shoving our way into the front, I'm going to get an elbow in the face.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
This is not a good system of cooperation because at night when you're sleeping and there's a saber-toothed tiger, I'm not waking you. So this doesn't work. So we evolved into hierarchical animals. We're constantly assessing and judging who's alpha. And when we assess, and it's a relative scale, when we assess that someone is alpha to us, we voluntarily step back and allow our alphas to eat first.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Our alphas get first choice of meat and first choice of meat. And we see this in society all the time, right? Like if you're a senior, someone will go get your coat for you in the other room. If you're a junior, you get your own coat, right? There are perks. There are perks all the time. And we don't mind. We don't mind our alphas getting preferential treatment.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
There's not a single person on the planet who is morally offended by somebody more senior in the organization getting a higher salary. It offends no one. We might think they're an idiot, but we're not morally offended. But the group is not stupid. We don't give our alphas all of the advantages for free.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
There's a deep seated social expectation that when danger threatens the tribe, the person who's actually better fed, who's actually genetically stronger is gonna be the one to rush towards the danger to protect us. Which is why we gave them first choice of mate because if they get killed, we need their genes in the gene pool. We're not stupid.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And some of them will get to the Olympics and some of them might even medal. And when it's time to retire, what they achieve is willingness. Michael Phelps becomes the most meddled Olympian of all in history. What's the immediate result?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We don't have any problem with a CEO making a ton more money than us. so long as they're willing to sacrifice their interests, their short-term interests for our survival. And when we watch CEOs laying people off to protect their own bonuses, they have literally violated the deep seated social responsibility of what the responsibility of a leader is, which is to protect the tribe.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We don't have a problem with you making more money, but that money doesn't come for free. You earn it by putting your interest second for the group. And what we've watched for decades now is a CEO class sacrifice their people to protect themselves, never sacrifice themselves to protect their people. And that's why you have an anti-capitalist movement right now.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That's why we have a pro-populist movement. That's why we're angry at the ruling classes. because they have violated their social responsibility to look after us.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You don't lay somebody off just because they have substandard performance. You don't lay somebody off just because they're difficult to be around. You coach them. You know this.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I need my numbers back. I need you done. It's the first choice. Sure. Right? And then they're surprised that they have morale issues that last for years beyond the short-term financial bump they got. Idiots. I mean, these things, it's not rocket scientists.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Like I'm not smart enough to run a multi-billion international public company, which is proof that that part is really easy because if I understand it, I know they understand. That means they must be ignoring it because they're definitely smarter than I am.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We need new leaders. We need new leaders with an ethical compass. We need new leaders who are willing to make change even if the law doesn't require them to make it. We need leaders who use layoffs existentially only and as a last resort, not a first line of defense. We need leaders who build businesses to contribute to society, not just to make money, where we throw out Milton Friedman.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We literally throw him out and say, he was wrong. The purpose of a business is not just to make money within the bounds of the law. The purpose of the business is to contribute to something larger than itself, and if you are good at doing that, you will make lots of money. I like to think of a business like a car, right? We don't buy cars simply so we can buy gas.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Andre Agassi becomes the most celebrated tennis player of all time. What's the immediate result? Loneliness, depression. And none of them will look back and say, oh my God, I think that was worth it. The thing you're celebrated for is fleeting. You'll be forgotten. You'll be replaced. Someone else will be a new up and coming.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That is not the purpose of a car, simply to get more gas, right? The purpose of a car is to go somewhere. And what do you need to make that car go? Gas, money. The purpose of a company is to go somewhere. The purpose of a company is to move a needle, contribute, make my life a little better, a little easier, a little more fun, whatever it is, a little more convenient. I don't care.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Contribute to my life in some way, shape or form, even if it's just to make me smile. And if you can do that, I will give you money and that money will fuel you to do that even more. And the CEO is the person who's sitting in the driver's seat looking out the front window, not the gas pedal, not the gas dial, and going, we're going there.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And the CFO is the one watching the gas dial going, okay, slow down, go faster, move, okay, you're fine. The CEO should be looking out the front door, out the front window. But too often we have CEOs obsessed with the gas dial, the gas gauge, right? And all the people are like, I like where you're going, can I join? Those are called employees. So we've completely forgotten why companies exist.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
They're supposed to make life a little better, a little easier, a little more fun, a little more convenient, whatever it is. Right. And the competition is who can do it better.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It was a race.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Or you and I both know this. You go for a run. You just pick somebody and pretend.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And then you just run ahead of them and you pick somebody else and you run ahead of them.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Correct. But kind of going back to the beginning. And by the way, communism doesn't work. We know that because people are greedy.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That is, that show is a metaphor for the way life should be, okay? It is a competition. There are winners and losers. Somebody gets booted off every week, and somebody gets star baker every single week, and they help each other.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You know, I was walking down Avenue of the Stars here in California, here in Los Angeles. And I was reading the names of some of these movie stars. I'd never heard of them. Maybe there's two or three of like- 40 years ago, 30 years ago, whatever they were, right? 40, 50 years ago, whatever they were. These were the Ryan Reynolds of the day. I had never heard of any of them.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
In fact, I was watching the final season, the final episode, just this week, and they're competing to be the winner of the whole competition, and somebody was struggling, and they said, will you help me? And the other guy came running over and said, absolutely. Really? They're competing to win. They're not competing to make the other person lose.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I wonder what it is about the decathlon versus other sports. I think because it's so hard. Or because there's variety.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That makes sense to me. And that's the metaphor, bake off or decathlon.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And I think that's what it is. It's okay to compete to win, but you can't compete for the other person to lose. And I think we've mistaken the two. And just look at our politics, right? There used to be a time in our politics where 80% of the negotiating happened behind closed doors and 20% of it's for the cameras. Now it's 100% for the cameras, right?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And what they would do is they would come up with an agreement that both parties could go back to their constituents and say, we got what we wanted. Now it's not enough to say we got what we wanted. They also have to say, and they got nothing. And guess who loses? Us. Everyone. Everyone. Right? And so, and again, this is infinite games, right?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
In a finite game where there's beginning, middle, and end, sure, there's a winner and a loser. But in business or life- Yeah.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You can win without other people. You can hit your numbers. You can beat your numbers. And it doesn't mean that the other company has to go into bankruptcy. 100%. Right? Like you can compete to win, but you cannot compete for the other person to lose. And for some reason in this modern day and age, it is not enough for us to win. We also want to ensure that the others around us lose.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And that's nonsense. And this is why I say, this is going right back in full circle where we started. This is why comparison's a thief of joy. Because it's not enough that your life is good. You want your life to be better than somebody else. You want somebody else's life to suffer so you can feel better. Why can't you just be happy with what you've got? Interesting.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Why can't you just be grateful? Right? Okay, they have more money than you, but your kids are better. Interesting. Like, we don't spend enough time. This is why you have the gratitude practice. It sounds so ooey, gooey, mushy, you know, hippy-dippy.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Steven Spielberg, there's some director. No, I'd never heard of him, right? These were the most famous people of their time, and I had no clue who they were. And every single celebrity, my niece doesn't know who Arnold Schwarzenegger is. why should she? And the only reason my nephew knows who he is is because I made him watch Terminator.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But I swear, I swear you wake up in the morning or before you go to bed at night, especially if you've got somebody sleeping next to you and just say, can we spend a minute, even if you do it by yourself and just say five things we're grateful for, even if it's the same thing every night. I love our family. I love our home. I loved the dinner you made tonight for us.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I loved that we went on vacation, and I love that we have a vacation coming up. And you realize very quickly life's pretty good. But when we do the comparison game, all we focus on is the things that are missing. Can you imagine going to bed at night and talking about all the things I hate about my life and all the things that are lacking? Exhausting. But we'd all be depressed. Yeah.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And people do it all the time. And we do it all the time. And you know one thing that I've done that's helped me? I have to have Instagram because I need to look at it for work every now and then. I deleted it. On an iPhone, you can hide an app from anywhere on your phone. It's just hidden. And you have to search for it to get it.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And I took it out of the search suggestions, which you can do as well. So literally, it shows up nowhere unless I type in I-N-S-T and then it pops up. My use of Instagram has plummeted. Wow. Plummeted. Plummeted. Because it's just not accessible right now. You know when you're just looking at your phone because you're bored and you're just swiping through the screen and you click on Instagram.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It's just... I'm not clicking on it and I'm not searching for it because I don't need it. Oh, and I've turned off all the notifications. That's a big one. That's great. Yeah, I don't have that. I've turned off all my notifications. But just by not having it visible, I'm the happier person. Wow.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I don't want to offend it.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Like I've noticed like friends who like, who haven't talked in a while and follow me, like, What? Well, I'm unfollowing you then.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
like not being invited to the birthday party. It's actively not, and that's telling everybody I'm not inviting you to the birthday party. I'm having a birthday party. Louis isn't invited. Just want Louis to know, hey, Louis, you're not invited to my birthday party. Just want you to know. So it's fine. But yeah, I think it is true. Just mute everybody.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And always say no to notifications. Yeah. Allow notifications? No. I have notifications turned on for text, phone call, and I think that's it.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And so I think we forget that fame is fleeting and we will all be replaced by somebody else who will have the job after us. You and I both know this. I'm fully aware that I, you know, my books are out there, my ideas are out there, and somebody else will have an idea and it'll replace my idea just like I replaced somebody else's.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Every other notification from my phone is turned off. Text and phone calls are the only thing that is allowed. And even phone calls don't ring. The phone doesn't buzz. There's no noise when that phone call comes in. And then I say, oh, I missed a call and I call them back. Yeah, that's smart. It's wise. So basically the only thing, and I always have my ringer off, always. Me too.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I never have it on. But also the thing that I've been practicing is having my phone not near me. So you have your phone in your pocket. Yeah, yours is over there. My phone is in the other room.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Because you still know that things are coming in. I don't hear it or feel it. But you know they're coming in.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So there's data on this. I'll get the numbers wrong, but you'll get the point, right? Which is when you have a phone on a desk with face up, you're something, you're like distracted 70% of the time or something. It's like ridiculously high. If the phone is down, it goes to like 40%, but you're still like, you're looking at it the whole time, you know, wondering what's coming in.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
If it's on and in your bag next to you, you're distracted 10% of the time. You're still distracted when it's in your bag. Yeah, it's crazy. And so what I find is if you put it in airplane mode- then you know nothing's coming in. Or turn it off. Turn it off or put it in air-made mode and leave it in another room. It's good. I do it all the time now, and I find it actually quite relaxing.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Yeah, it's good. Because I know nothing's coming in. It's not even near me.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But, you know, parents are the worst offenders of this. There are schools that want to ban phones and the parents would say no. I think schools should ban phones. I think they should ban the phone as well. The parents are like, well, what if there's an emergency? It's like, well, you call the office. They know where your kid is. Like when we were kids, they're like...
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You need to come to the office. Yeah, exactly. They called your office, so is it. They just told you the office. We know where the kid is all day. Number one and number two, there's not emergencies. It's parents just calling and say, what time do you want me to pick you up? And so let the kids keep their phones in their lockers. I think they should. But there should be no phones in a classroom.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
None. They should be banned. It's parents who are the big offenders. It's crazy. You know, I need to get ahold of my kid in case there's an emergency. How many emergencies you having per week? No, none. One a year? Maybe. If you're lucky or unlucky?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It's close to zero.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Yeah, the number of times I was called out of my classroom and in all of my junior high school and high school life was maybe twice.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Maybe twice.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
If you're insecure about something, you will find yourself feeling competitive with your friends. And I think that that is more a sign of something you're going through. We've all been there. I've definitely been competitive with friends. Really? Sure, of course. It's because I'm not in a good space. And their success is reminding me of the thing that I'm struggling with.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So are you a good friend if you're competing with your friend? I think you're a good friend if you're open with your friend what you're going through. Hey, can I talk to you for a minute? I'm going through some stuff and I'm having feelings that are making me real uncomfortable. Like I'm getting jealous of your success and that's screwed up because I'm so proud of you and so happy for you.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Can I just talk to you about what I'm going through in my life? Because I don't think I'm in a good place if I'm having that feeling. You know, jealousy is a feeling like happy, sad, angry. And, you know, it's the same thing in relationships. Usually when we feel jealous, what we do is we demand that our partner change their behavior so we don't have to do insecurities. Right? Like, how dare you?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
How dare you talk to your ex? How dare you look at that pretty barista? And so they're forcing you to change your behaviors they don't have to do. As opposed to, hey, babe, I got really jealous when you called your ex. And I know you guys have been friends long before you met me. Can I just talk it through with you? I think I'm going through some stuff. Can you just hear me out for a little bit?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Now, then you may say, you know what? I'm going to talk to her less because I want to be supportive on you and your journey. But that's your choice to change your behavior in support of your partner. Yes. Uh, but I think it's the same in work stuff. The ability to understand that jealousy is a feeling, and it's your feeling. And you need to be able to deal with your and your insecurities.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And you can't be mad at your friend for being successful. You can't be mad at your friend for achieving something that you wish you could achieve. But you can look at yourself and saying, am I not doing something or am I? And this is why we go back to what I said before, which is work towards the thing that you want to do. And then if you achieve it, accept that you won.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Well, I think we've over-indexed on that. We can't ignore social media. We cannot ignore... Prior to social media, only a small percentage of people listening to this will know what I'm talking about. We used to watch Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach. You know, champagne dreams and what is it? Caviar dreams and champagne, whatever it was. MTV Cribs was like my federation.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Because that feeling of comparing yourself to your friends really goes down a lot. That's what happened to me.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So let me, so I think of my life, I think of my life like an iceberg. Right? Which is when I was starting out, I had a vision of the world that existed, that could exist, but it didn't exist yet. So the whole iceberg was under the ocean. I could see it, but nobody else could see it. And so I was trying to describe what I saw, but people were like, I don't get it.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And then a few people kind of understood what I was trying to say, Or the things that I was putting out in the world helped me articulate it. And so a bit of iceberg popped out. And people would be like, oh, I can see what you're trying to do here. That's amazing. And then they would help me because they saw what I was trying to build because they saw what was above the ocean.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But what I saw was beneath the ocean constantly. Like, oh, I still have so much more to do. And no matter how much I've accomplished, I've written a few books. I've run the internet lottery more than once, which is amazing. And more of the iceberg shows up. So people now, you kind of know what I stand for. You know the vision I have of the world that I'm trying to build.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You either buy into it or you don't. I'm pretty predictable. In other words, more of the iceberg is showing up. And people look at what's above the ocean line, above the sea line, and they go, wow. look at all this stuff you've accomplished. And I just can still see everything that's beneath the ocean. I go, ugh, still more to do. But I'm not moving the goalposts.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I'm not trying to get a different iceberg. I just know that vision is infinite. All men are created equal. I have a dream. They're all ideals that are unrealistic and unachievable, but will die trying. And that's the point. I imagine a world of world peace where we can resolve conflict peacefully. I'm never going to get it, but try.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I imagine a world in which people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Never going to achieve it, but I'll die trying. And so when I say I've won, what I mean is there's iceberg above the ocean. What I mean is I'm not living in dream world anymore. What I mean is I have momentum. What I mean is I have help.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
What I mean is the movement is advancing. And this is my standard. However anybody else wants to define it is up to them. This is the worst thing you can do is pick somebody else's standard and make it your own. This is for me. For me, it was about momentum. It was always about momentum. That I wanted to do something that could survive me.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And if you look at, you know, this class of, and I hate the term, but let's use the term that people use, but thought leaders, right? Which is the mistake that so many of them make is, and I call it the Oprah problem. Right? What's the Oprah problem? Oprah's amazing. She's a force of nature. She's incredible. She's inspiring. She's amazing. We all bow down to Oprah. She's a currency.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You know, and people are like, is that person good at what they do? That's Oprah's person. You're like, oh, whoa. You know, like, if you're connected with Oprah, you've made it. The Oprah mistake, she put her face and name on absolutely everything. She was on the cover of every single issue of Oprah Magazine. She's got her face on the cover of every single book.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So what happens when there's no Oprah? What happens to the company? What happens to the movement? I can predict. It dies. Really? Do you think anyone cares about Oprah Magazine when Oprah's not around? What does Oprah's network stand for without Oprah? Force of nature who did the thing that made strategic sense, which is to leverage the brand. But at what cost?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
The cost is it probably will only survive a lifetime, a powerful lifetime at that, but not beyond. And so I don't put my face on any books because I'm afraid of the Oprah problem. I don't want my face and name on everything. And I've been very resistant. My team sometimes fights me with it because nobody Googles the name of my company. They Google me.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
MTV Cribs. And we, you know, we watched television of rich and famous people. And it was, I mean, it's amazing. Like we, it is, there is an aspirational nature to it. And I'm sure back in the day, we looked at the carriages that went by the princes and, you know, dukes and went, oh, one day, you know? I'm sure it's aspirational. And I think in healthy doses, there's nothing wrong with it.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And so I've had to sort of recognize that I have to let go of some of it for expedience sake. but I'm deathly afraid of making it all about me.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Well, I mean, I've added to the English language. I mean, I think that's amazing. Like the concept of why, like journalists, companies, CEOs, analysts, whoever, people, talk about their why. They use the concept of why as a noun. Like, what's your why? That company doesn't know their why. And they don't quote me.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Wall Street Journal will say the problem with that company is they don't know their why, and they do not reference any of my work. It's just in the vernacular. And prior to my work, that didn't exist. And I'm so proud of that. I'm so proud of that. And the best part about it is it's not associated with me. That's the thing I'm most proud of, that most people don't know.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
that that was what I was working on all those years ago. It's just part of life now. And that to me, I can sit back and no one will know my name. I don't care if my name is forgotten. I want to be one of those stars that nobody knows who they are. I think that's great. Let somebody else, you know?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But to know that something that I did has added to people's understanding of the world, disconnected from me, I'm done.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Yeah. I love being an uncle. I love my niece and nephew. My family fuels me as if I were their dad. Would you ever have kids or no? I mean, I'm more in love with the idea of partnership than I am of children. I like the idea of raising children with a partner. So my drive is not to have a child.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
My drive is to find somebody I love so much that I want the lifestyle of raising a family with that person. I would always get turned on emotionally when I'd see my sister or my brother-in-law doing the division of labor. I'd just be at their house and I'd be like, okay, You bath the kids, I'll clean up. I'm like, oh, that's so cool.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And even now, like, okay, you get this one from school, I'll get that one from volleyball practice. And the division of labor and the organizing, I think it's awesome. It's a well-oiled machine. I love partnership. I love partnership and division of labor. I just think it's the best thing in the world. So you may have a family in the future or you're open to it?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I mean, you know, whether it's family or friends, we're like family. You know, I think that we have to perform for society. You have to act a certain way. There's levels of decorum. Manners, values, morals, ethics. And there's much said that you get to be yourself where, no, you don't. You have to, you're not, you shouldn't be not yourself. You should always be you, for sure.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But you smooth the edges. Like you and I, like I curse like a sailor when I'm not on camera. Sure. I'm on camera. Yeah, yeah. I'm... I'm toned down a bit. Right? You're you, but less. I'm still me. I'm still this, like you hang out with me privately. This is what you're going to get. Yeah, with some applause. A little more cursing, you know? You know, a little more irreverence, you know? Sure.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I'm still me, but you smooth the edges depending on like how you are with your friends is very different than how you are in an interview. how you are on a first date is very different than how you are on a 10th date, right? And it's still all you, but you have to change for the situation. We have no choice, it's how society functions.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
This is the magical thing about a lottery. For $1, you can have a dream for an entire week. You spend $1 and you are already dreaming about how you're going to spend the money. And then you don't win, of course. And you're not upset about it. It's not like you spent the money already. You just paid for the dream. And if you're going to spend $1, It's different than being addicted to the lottery.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
If we all just want to be our quote unquote true selves all the time, Society would break. It would be chaos. So the idea of bending and molding to fit the situation, you have to be a little different at work than you are with your friends. The jokes you make with your friends, you can't make at work. You're not allowed, right? You get fired, baby. You might get fired, yeah. Yeah.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And so, or you'll upset somebody. Well, you're not upsetting your friends, right? And so you have to do that. And so the value of family and more important than the value of friends is that's the one place, those intimate settings, where you can let it all go. Right. And hopefully be accepted.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You can be weird and you can be irreverent and you can be rude and you can say nonsense and you can let all your insecurities out on the table as opposed to hiding them every day, which is what we're all very good at hiding our insecurities on a daily basis. Like on a first date, don't put all your insecurities on the table. Not good first date etiquette. Sure. You know?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
By your 10th date, yeah, start to search on vulnerability, you know? But with your friends, it's all out on the table. And that's why friends are important. Because if you're playing by society's rules, if you're hedging yourself to conf... What will people think? They're thinking nothing. You're by yourself with your friends. What will people think of me? They'll think nothing.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
They're not thinking of you. And that's why friends are important. Because you have to have the release of being your fully exposed true self with all of the weirdness and warts just out on display and you don't feel judged and you feel safe and you feel loved. And that's why friends are important. Because if you're pretending, not pretending, that's the wrong word.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
If you're hedging and smoothing for society and you're hedging and smoothing in private, you're gonna feel lonely and you're gonna feel uncomfortable. If you're fully open nut job self with your friends and then you're fully nut job self out in public, people are gonna be like, no. Chill out, yeah, yeah, chill out. And I've seen it.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Like I know a guy who does stuff what we do and he is very irreverent. He curses on stage. I mean, he's like, he's raw. That's how he is in private and how he is in public. And his career's great. But I also know he doesn't get invited to certain gigs. Oh, right, right. Because of that. Because of that.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I think the uninvitations happen more than the invitations. Sure, sure, sure. You know? And they just wish he would stop cursing. Right, right. Because the audience doesn't want that. Right. And... If he doesn't care, then he doesn't care. Exactly, yeah. But you know, the point is there are costs. Sure, of course. There's a price. There's a price. There's a price for everything.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But anyway, the point is not that. The point is the value of friends is that you can be yourself without judgment. Yes.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That's different. That's like betting the farm, hoping that that's your actual retirement plan. That's unhealthy. That's different. But if you spend a dollar every now and then, a couple bucks every now and then, just for the fantasy, I think it's very healthy. I think it's fine. And it's to your point about intention.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So here, I know we're winding down, but let's do a couple of practical things. One of them was if you're in conflict with someone, and let's talk about relationships because it works at work as well because relationships are relationships, but here's some mistakes that we make. We correct people's facts in an emotional situation. We bring facts to an emotional gunfight. Do not do that. Really?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Right. So for example. Why not? Because facts don't, facts and emotions are different things. Right? I'll give you an example. Your girlfriend says to you, I'm so angry at you because six times last week you did this thing and you went, actually it was four times. And she was like, who cares how many times it was? Like, if you're going to fight with me, get your facts right. Yeah. Don't do that.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Just let it be sex. It doesn't matter.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
No, do not bring facts to an emotional gunfight.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It's nothing to do with fairness. It's about the other person feeling heard. You're getting, you're playing the wrong rules. I got that. I got that. Playing with the wrong rules. So do not bring facts to an emotional gunfight. Okay. Okay. Allow emotions. So I'll give you a real life example, okay, of where I learned this, or one of the ways I applied this. I went to see a friend's performance.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
that she was in a show. It was the worst thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And at the end of the show, I went and hung out in the lobby like all the friends and family. And she came out all jacked up on adrenaline, still in costume, still in makeup. Big smile on her face. She goes, what'd you think? She knows I'm an honest broker. She knows I'm not going to lie to her. Now is not the time.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Now is not the time. So I said, but I can't lie. Yes. So I said, oh my God, I'm so proud of you. True. So this was so much fun for me to be able to see you do your thing for the first time. I've never seen you on stage before. True. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Kiss, kiss, kiss. And then goes off to the next person.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
But I think what has happened in our society is fame and fortune used to come as a result of doing something else. It was the unintended byproduct. Like I discovered, you know, radiation. Oh, Marie Curie, you're so famous, right? Or I did this amazing painting. Oh, Picasso, you're so famous, so rich, right?
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Two days later, when all the adrenaline has calmed down and there's no more emotion, I said to her, hey, you asked me what I thought about the play. Can I tell you, can we talk about it? She goes, yeah, absolutely. And then I can say, eh, I thought the directing was a bit weak. I thought the thing, and we can have a rational conversation about it. If I did that in the moment,
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I would've hurt her feelings. Yeah, of course. For no reason whatsoever. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. Right? Somebody gives you a gift. It's the ugliest sweater you've ever seen. They go, what do you think? You can't say it's ugly. You can't say it's ugly. You go, well, thank you so much for thinking of me. This was so unnecessary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then three days later you go, hey,
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Do you have the gift receipt? Do you mind if I exchange it for something else? I'm not crazy about the color. They'd be like, yeah, totally fine. So you can't bring facts to an emotional gunfight. You meet emotion with emotion. You meet facts with facts.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And sometimes if somebody's in an emotional state, if you're not, you have to allow them to be in the emotional state, which means you have to hold space. And it sounds ooey-gooey, sort of hippy-dippy. Hold space. All it means is allow the emotions to be heard. That's all they want is to feel, feel, not think. All they want to do is feel heard. So there's one really easy trick to do it.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Whatever they're saying to you, and I've had this happen to me as having my girlfriend decided to tell me what she thought. And she was saying things that were untrue, made me super defensive, super defensive and really unfair. And I fought back a couple of times and it didn't work because it never does, because I'm bringing facts to an emotional gunfight and I should know better.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So in my head, I said to myself, this is her story. Her story doesn't have to be true. Your job is to listen to her story. I literally said it. And she would say things that really like made me, they triggered me. And I would say to myself, this is her story. Her story doesn't have to be true. Your job is to listen to her story.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And I sat there and I would nod and I'd say, tell me more, go on, what else? And I acted, I listened to a story that I removed myself as one of the characters. Yeah, so hard to do. She was talking about somebody else. And I just let her get it all out. And I affirmed. I said, yeah, uh-huh, I hear that. I hear that hurt. Tell me more. What else? Go on. Tell me more. What else? Go on.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
This is her story. Her story doesn't have to be true. My job is to listen to her story. And at the end, she goes, thank you. Thank you. I probably overstated some of those things. I know you've been struggling, and I know you've been overworked, and that's probably... And she gave me all the passes. I didn't have to say, what are you talking about? I'm distressed out of my mind. How can you...
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Because I'm not listening to her, right? Yes. And so this is how we resolve conflict. Conflict resolution is not efficient. And what I've learned is that it gets more and more efficient over time. Because you get really good. You get really good at making somebody feel heard really quickly. And you get really good at backing away really quickly.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And you get really good at understanding that if their response is above a five, it's probably about something else. You always leave the cap off the toothpaste. It's not about the toothpaste. You get really good about not having a whole fight to find out it wasn't about the toothpaste. Because that's usually why it's inefficient.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You'd fight first, then you'd realize it's not about the toothpaste. And that's what takes four hours. What happens is you recognize that when somebody yells at you about the cap on the toothpaste, you go, babe, what's the matter? What's going on? And you let them say whatever they need to say about the cap on the toothpaste. And you know it's not about the toothpaste.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That fame and fortune came as a result of plying a trade or contributing to something bigger than yourself. And now fame and fortune are the currency. People crave fame and fortune without doing anything. And they're looking for a hack. They're looking for a trick to game the system to get the fame and the fortune without actually contributing to the lives of others in any shape or form.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You just need to let them get it out so they can get to the thing that it's actually about. for you to take accountability for your actions. And that's the other thing. You have to take accountability for your actions. Saying you're sorry doesn't mean you're wrong. Saying you're sorry means you take accountability for the thing that you said or did. That hurt them. That hurt them.
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Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
The analogy is you're walking through the airport with your wheelie bag and you accidentally roll your wheelie bag over somebody's foot. You turn around, you immediately go, sorry, you didn't intend to, but it's your bag. So you say sorry. Can you imagine if you rolled your bag over someone's foot and they go, what up? And you go, what? I didn't do it on purpose.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
They're like, you roll over my foot. You're like, I didn't do it on purpose. That's how we fight with our loved ones. We say something that hurts them. We rolled our bag over their foot and they go, why won't you say you're sorry? You're like, I didn't do it on purpose. Why would I need to apologize? Because it's your words. Because it's your actions. Because it's your wheelie bag.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We are super, super focused on our learning platform where it's all about human skills. We're not going to teach you how to get an MBA or anything. It's none of that stuff. It's all human skills.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
This is the art that helps you become successful in life. The art of being a human being. And cats don't have to work very hard to be cats. That's just natural. But it turns out it's a lot of work to be a good human being. Yeah, yeah. To be good at being a human being is really like, it's not natural. We're kind of junk at it and you have to study it.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Conflict resolution is essential in a relationship. But what if you don't know how to resolve a conflict if you've never been taught? And so listening, conflict resolution, how to give and receive feedback, these are all skills. How to lead others. These are all skills. These are all skills that we have on our website and continue to add to that skill set. That's great.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And it's a lot of the stuff is, you know, the way we come up with a lot of the classes is like somebody on the team is like, I need to learn this.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We'll build it.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Bit of optimism podcast. That's the thing. Website. That's the thing. I also have a, I also am a publisher. Ooh, I saw that too. Yeah. So I have, I have a deal with Penguin Books and my last book that we published was a book called Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Gadara, which is spectacular. Is this the restaurant here? Yes. Out in New York? Yes.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
He used to own 11 Madison Park, which was the number one restaurant in the world. Interesting. So he published that book. That's great. Yeah. And the book has nothing, well, it has everything. It's not about how to start a restaurant. Sure, sure. It's about how to treat people. Of course.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I mean, you'd give me a platform to wax philosophical. I always like coming on here. I love it. I always like coming on here. Our conversation always goes in a very unexpected direction. It's fun, man. Yeah, we do have a lot of fun. So thanks very much.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I recently spoke to Vivek Murthy, who's the Surgeon General of the United States. And he was an A-type personality kid who was driven by grades. I'm going to get A's, I'm going to get A's, I'm going to perform, I'm going to perform at the Sacrifice of Prince, just like we talked about, right? School is number one.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And at the age of 17, I don't remember the circumstances, but he had to do some sort of do-good program. Maybe school required it, maybe he needed to do it for his college application, who knows, right? I'm sure it was not out of altruism. It was... And he set up sort of a peer-to-peer AIDS education program in India, right? And he said it was the most powerful thing he ever felt.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
He'd never felt anything like it. Really? Why? The idea of contributing to the lives of others, service, service. And he spent years trying to recreate that feeling, not knowing how to get that feeling again. And no amount of commercial success grade success. He went to medical school getting the best residency.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
None of the traditional trappings gave him the feeling that he had when he got to give something to somebody else. Wow. And I think we forget that we are a legacy animal in a modern world. We were a very outdated animal. This machine is tens of thousands of years old and it's had no No OS upgrades ever, ever, right?
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And yet the world is super modern and our systems are really archaic and antique and old fashioned. And so you have to understand the way the human being is designed is we're designed to look after each other, you know? Like everybody talks about dopamine, you know, the dopamine hit. Well, dopamine is in your system for a simple reason.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
If we go back to caveman times, it's to make sure that you eat and to make sure that you find shelter, right? So you see the apple tree in the distance, you get a little shot of dopamine. It says, that's the thing. And as you get closer to the thing you want, you measure the steps and the progress. And in this case, the tree gets a little bigger because you're getting a little closer.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It gets another shot of dopamine that says, keep going, keep going, feel so good. And then finally you get, you kill the animal, you get to the berry tree, whatever it is, you catch the first, you're like, yes, right? Win the game, yes, yes.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That feeling is gone. Gone. That feeling is gone. That feeling that you had that day. It's a memory. Gone. It's a memory. You can recall, but the feeling is gone. And on purpose. Dopamine doesn't survive because dopamine wants you to keep going to get the things you want. Right? So dopamine is the feeling you get when you achieve the thing you want to achieve or find the thing you're looking for.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That's why love at first sight is not a thing. So, you know, it was like, oh, we went on our first date and I'm telling you it was love. I'm like, no, it's dopamine. Because you're like, you dreamed of a person, you projected that dream on this person. You're like, you are the one. No, no, no, no, no, no. Just a vision. So it's the wrong feeling. That's just dopamine. Endorphins.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
Endorphins don't really have a role in survival anymore. Yeah. They used to be, endorphins, they're a chemical that mask physical pain. So when you're out hiking looking for food or you kill the leopard, now you need to carry it back and your muscles hurt and it's heavy. Well, endorphins keep you going and they literally mask physical pain. That's what they do. It's a survival thing.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
We have no survival need for endorphins anymore, we just go to the supermarket. But everybody who's done exercise knows what an endorphin rush is, and it feels amazing, and you feel like you can keep running forever, and this is the best, oh my God, this is the best. And then a few hours later, you're in pain. The pain comes. just later.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
So the difference is, but endorphins and dopamine are selfish. You don't need anybody's help to get them. Set your goals, achieve your goals, go for a run, do heavy exercise. You don't need anybody's help. They're antisocial or unsocial. So when we pursue dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, we don't actually need anybody. That's why we have oxytocin and serotonin.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That's where you need someone else. Those are pro-social. They fire for good reasons and bad reasons in this modern day and age, but when they're done for the right reasons, it's pro-social. So when you go see your son or daughter graduate, your son and daughter are walking across the stage receiving their diploma, pouring with serotonin. Serotonin is the feeling of accomplishment.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
It's the feeling of pride. Right? And they're walking across the stage with their chest out. I did this and it's amazing. Right? But their parents sitting in the audience are having the same burst of serotonin, feeling equally as proud. That's my kid. And that's serotonin.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
You get the reward for coaching somebody, parenting somebody, supporting somebody, helping somebody, watching them achieve and sharing in their achievement. Right? It's our achievement. And that's why people give thank you speeches. I couldn't have done this without God, my parents, my coaches. They're sharing. They're sharing. The recognition that I can't achieve alone.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And then oxytocin, the magical one, which is unicorns and rainbows, mushy, mushy, love, love, right? And oxytocin comes from many, many reasons, and you can get it many ways. Physical touch gives you oxytocin. But doing something for someone with no expectation of anything in return gives you oxytocin. An act of kindness.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
That's what he did, the Surgeon General. He does something nice for somebody else with no expectation of anything in return. And he felt good. He felt incredibly good. And the best thing about oxytocin is when you have it in your body, all it does, it makes you wanna be nicer. It's mother nature's way of trying to get us to look after each other.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And so when people don't serve, when they don't give to others, they might be consumed with dopamine, which is exciting. The problem is dopamine is addictive, because you only feel good in the moment of the achievement, which is why the drug, You only feel good when the drug is in your system. And then when it's not in your system, you got to get it. Same with dopamine.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
I got to keep moving the goalpost. Okay, I'll feel good when I hit this goalpost. Nope. Move the goalpost. I'll feel good if I make my second million, my third million, my fourth million, this many followers, that many followers, this many hits, that many hits, this many likes. Nope. You'll feel good for a second. It'll pass and you'll have to move the goalpost again.
The School of Greatness
Simon Sinek: Why FRIENDSHIP Is The Key To Your Abundance & Success
And the thing that I've learned You should pursue something. You should have some sort of ambition. And I don't care what it is. You define your life however you want to define it. I want to have a family. I want to start my own business. Right? And once you've got there, once you've reached your goalpost, you have to say to yourself, I've won.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
That's such a layered question. So this is the most common question I get, by the way. I'm in middle management. And by the way, middle management is the most difficult job in the world because you have to be tactical and strategic. Because you're going down and up. You're going down and up. You have to do a job and also lead others doing a job.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
You're in a position where you have had not a lot of practice leading as well. So you're learning on the job.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
You can't reach the CEO. And the anger above you when they're frustrated with the people. And it's just, it's the worst place. And that's where most things die. Which is – I've gone to companies where the senior leadership is incredible. They're wonderful. People focus, blah, blah, blah. And then you go to the front lines and you're like, this is an awful place. Something happens in the middle.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
There's a class of people who are the angry smart people who are angry – and by the way, I think they hate people like me and Trevor too – Well, I'll speak for me. There's this angry smart person who are absolutely smarter than the people above them. But what they don't understand is that intelligence alone and book smarts is not the thing that puts you in a leadership position.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Understanding people, understanding politics, understand how to navigate, having EQ, these are necessary skills as well. And when they compare intelligence to intelligence, they'll always come up higher because
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Right. And in those cases, it's like the only common factor in all of their frustration with all the people they've worked for is them. So either everyone's an idiot.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Or maybe there's a skill set that those people who are advancing or mastering that they're ignoring. It's also the incentive structures. Most organizations tend to overemphasize performance results above leadership capacity. Doing the job and leading others who do the job are not the same thing. You can be a great salesperson. That doesn't make you a great sales manager.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
But we tend to promote great salespeople into the position of sales manager where you lead people who do the job you used to do.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
different skill sets and so we don't promote very well and so that's another reason which these people may be better leaders but they're being overlooked because of what are the incentive structures inside the organization and then ultimately the incentive structures above them as well which is the senior leaders are incentivized not to make the company better at least in a public company they're incentivized to make the stock price better and so they're going to promote the people who do that
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And the focus shouldn't be on the boss. You can't control people you can't control. Like no number of anonymously sent books to your boss will change the way that they lead. Although I urge people to keep trying.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Keep trying. It's not going to work, but keep trying. My advice is always the same, which is worry about the things you can control. Be the leader you wish you had, right? And so how do you help the people for whom you're responsible? How do you help them rise? How do you help them build confidence? How do you help them build the skill sets?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
To the people to the left of you and to the right of you, even the person above you, that's a human being too. And we don't know the stresses that they're dealing with. And to have empathy for your boss who might have just yelled at you. to go into their office afterwards and say, are you okay? And truly become the leader you wish you had.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Because what I've learned is, especially if you would adopt an infinite mindset, which is if you let go of that things have to happen by a certain time, what will happen is that influence, that'll be a really well-led group. And generally their performance will go up because they're well-led. And senior management will either just leave them alone because the The numbers are good.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Or if they're curious, they'll say, what are you doing? And what will end up happening is one of those people will get promoted out. They'll take everything they've learned from that great leader. And that will infect another group. And before you know it, the tail wags the dog.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
But oral history is a recounting where gossip is laced with judgment.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Let's bring it down a few thousand feet, right? So I think venting is important. So you leave work that day, you pick up the phone, you're like... And you just get it all out. You say all the stupid things and you just need to get it out. It's a venting, right? I think that's good. I think venting is very healthy. Okay. Okay. Venting is healthy. It's like any tension in any relationship.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Sometimes you just need to say it and then you're fine. Okay. So I think venting at work is very important.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Okay. But you can vent about work to other people.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
I mean, or you can vent at work about your husband. I mean, like you vent about your kids.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And you have to have emotional professionalism. You know, you can't vent about your boss to somebody who works for you. Because your voice carries, carries influence. Okay. Right? And then you're going to start muddying the waters. But you can vent to somebody you're friends with at work and they know you're just venting and it doesn't affect their opinion about the person you're talking to.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And before you move on, why is venting good? Because I think it releases tension. Because I think if you keep the tension in, it builds, it builds, it builds. And you start forming a narrative about a person that they're dumb, they're stupid, and you start treating them that way.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
So gossip, I think, is perpetuating narratives that may or may not be true.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Gossip can destroy a culture.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
But it is gossip. I mean, it's not journalism. No, no, no, but wait, wait. Gossip is... That's helpful. But I think when you start spreading ideas about a person that are unresearched, unverified... or that you wouldn't say to that person, it can be very dangerous. I know a company that gossip is a firing offense because it's so destructive.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And when they think about gossip, they're talking about spreading rumors about a person, even if you think it's true.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Oh, this is an interesting idea.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
This is very interesting. I think we need another word here.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
I don't know if that's the right word. I think we need another word here because I think you and I are talking about different things.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Because I agree with you and I wouldn't classify that stuff as gossip.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
You can't prove that he's a bully. But by the way, gossip spreads much quicker and easier in virtual. Like when you're in an office and you interact with people and somebody's really nice on a daily basis or he says hi and somebody goes, that person is... like the worst person in the world to work with. And they're like, they're really nice.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
But when we're separated from each other, what I've learned, what I've found is that false narratives about somebody swirl way quicker.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
I love how we're all having a conversation about the office, like from our corporate jobs. Yeah, but we've all been in offices.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
I know that's working in an office. That's going to an office and then leaving.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
So we did this in our company because I was very public about it with the whole team, which is, I said, from now on, when somebody says something about someone's intentions or labels their character... It is everyone's responsibility in that meeting to interrupt that train of thought and raise the question. So, for example, that guy's so lazy, right? Oh, my God, he's so lazy.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
All that's needed is for anybody in the room to say could be lazy or could be stressed or has some stuff going on at home or we've put them in a job they don't know how to do it and so they're freaking out. Like to just add to a list of other possibilities that it could be that's getting the results that we're getting. Lazy is absolutely on the list.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And it's just giving people grace that we're not judging why they're performing the way they are or why they are the way they are. So I'll give you another example. I went for a walk with a friend of mine. She wanted some advice. And the conversation started like this. My boss is a horrible person. And I immediately interrupted and said, oh, my God, does she kick her dog and abuse her children?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
She said, no. I said, okay, so we don't know that she's a horrible person. We know that she's a horrible boss. Those are two very, very different things. And I think that's the problem. When we label someone's behavior or skill set versus labeling their character, and when we label their character, it's insidious and dangerous, and that's when it gets toxic.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Thank you. Where are you based? Here. Oh, you're based in LA? Yeah, yeah. I'm a New Yorker, but I'm here now.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And that's a good example of the swirl of gossip. That's what I mean. It can destroy someone's character, and this is where I think these things get dangerous. But you're 100% right, which is the office is a little petri dish, and everything that we learn at work is applicable. The best organizations are values-based, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
That's, yeah. So that's, go on.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
No, I... Make him come. My sister and her family moved here in the middle of 2019. My sister and I are very close, and we work together. And so to help her ease into living in L.A., I got a place here and started doing the bi-coastal thing. But, you know, COVID was kind of a magical gift.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
So you are highlighting the very problem with modern capitalism, right? The capitalism that we have today is not Adam Smith capitalism. That's not the capitalism we have today. We have a bastardized form of capitalism influenced by an economist from the late 70s named Milton Friedman.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
The Adam Smith version of capitalism was that the baker selfishly wants to make the best bread so that they can sell more bread than all the other bakers. And the butcher selfishly wants to make the best meat so he can sell more than all the other butchers. And the dairy farmer wants to make the best butter so that he can sell more. And what you get is the best sandwich.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
What we as the customer get is the best sandwich, right? So the selfish behavior of wanting to be better than their others benefits the customer, right? Yeah. And in the late 1970s, Milton Friedman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times where he basically proposed a new definition of business. He actually called it the responsibility of business.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
The responsibility of business was to maximize profit within the bounds of the rules. Forget about ethics. Maximize profits within the bounds of the rules, right? Okay. Ethics are a higher standard than the rules. And you see it all the time. Companies did some horrifically unethical things. A patent to an essential drug, and they raised the price 1,500%. It's within the rules.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And they all say the same thing. We broke no laws. Yeah. Which is true, right? Horrible, but not illegal, right? And so in the late 70s and early 80s, a lot of the ruling classes, the CEO classes, heard this definition and went, Yeah, baby. Right? And they embraced Friedman's definition of capitalism or business, the responsibility to business, and they sort of doubled down on it.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And you started – it gave rise to some entirely new behaviors and entirely new CEOs. This was just from this op-ed? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, it became a popular thing. Wow, Milton.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Well done, Milton. I don't like Milton Friedman, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
There we go. Can't speak about his character, but I don't like the work he put out there. And so you started to see these new behaviors arise. So, for example, the use of mass layoffs to balance the books.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
on an annualized basis, right? Did not exist in the United States prior to the 1980s. It didn't exist. Layoffs, mass layoffs were used for existential reasons. Like, oh my God, the company's going bankrupt. We have to cut 10% of our workforce. Now it's like, we're profitable, we're just not as profitable as we promised. You lose your job, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
That started in the early 1980s, and it started to gain popularity. And then it gave rise to an entirely new type of CEO like Jack Welch, who was the CEO of GE. And he was like the poster child of Miltonian economics, where you started to see the shareholder being prioritized over the customer and the employee. You started to see shorter-term time horizons.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
You started to see an emphasis on growth. price of stock versus is this good for the company's long-term value. You started to see long-term greed being replaced by short-term greed. I don't have an issue with long-term greed, but short-term greed is a problem. And the use of human beings' livelihoods to maximize shareholder value.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And this was all because of this Miltonian-influenced Jack Welch poster child that is the standard of how businesses are led today. There's nothing wrong with capitalism. There's a huge problem with this version of capitalism. And you can see what's happening. There's a rise of populist movements across the West and the capitalist societies.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
My niece and nephew were kids that I used to see, you know, a couple times a month when I'd drive up to the suburbs and spend a few hours at their house. And then when we went into lockdown, we were having family dinner every single night.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
I don't care if you're on the left and right, Bernie or Trump, it doesn't matter. And they're complaining about the same thing, which is the very small percentage of the elite are getting richer. And everybody else is being left behind. And when you have a huge delta between those who have and those who don't, what you get is revolution.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
The middle class is drying up and people are not investing in the stock market anymore. The whole stock market exists so that the average working American can share in the wealth of a nation. That's why we have a stock market. That's what Alexander Hamilton imagined, right? And the... But that's not what we have anymore. It's become a game for a few so they can command more wealth.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And just to put one final sort of cap on it, If you go back to the anthropology of leadership, like if we go back, you know, 50,000 years, whatever you want to do, where we lived in tribes that were never bigger than about 150, 200 people, human beings evolved into naturally hierarchical animals.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
We're constantly assessing and judging who's alpha, depending on whatever the standards are for that group. Who's alpha? And we treat our alphas differently, right? You know this. As soon as you started getting some fame, you're better looking and all your jokes are funnier, right? If you leave your jacket in another room, somebody goes and gets your jacket for you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
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If you're junior and you leave a jacket in the other room, you get your own jacket, right? That's just how it works. And so what we did was we assessed our alphas and we stepped back and we allowed our alphas to get first choice of meat and first choice of mate. Except the group is not stupid. We don't give first choice of meat and first choice of mate to our alphas for nothing.
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There's a deep-seated social contract that when danger threatens the tribe, we expect the person who's actually stronger, actually smarter, actually better fed to confront the danger to protect the tribe. That's why we give you all the perks. You don't get the perks for free. They come at a cost. And so that's the deep-seated social contract. We have no problem with CEOs making more money than us.
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Yeah, yeah. I got very, very close with those kids. And I love living in L.A. for them. And when they're not here, I'm very bored. You do a lot of work.
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Where it broke the contract and why you get the anger is not the disparity. It's when we started to see the people who are in alpha positions, when danger threatened the tribe, the economy took a little shake, whatever it is, that they would sooner sacrifice the people to protect their own interests rather than sacrifice their interests for the short term to protect the people.
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And that's why we're getting the populist reaction. That's what it is. It's the people saying, you have violated your... Right. And so we're coming for you with pitchforks.
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Benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government.
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So the reaction isn't throw out capitalism and democracy. The answer is throw out this form of capitalism. Go back.
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The ones who don't agree with me don't call me. Have you ever changed the CEO's mind? The problem is not their mind. The problem is their incentive structure. Like I remember I was working with a CEO and gave him some counsel on sort of how to organize things better. And he was really honest. He's like, I totally agree with everything you're telling me. And your insights are spot on.
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And I completely agree. And I'm going to implement none of it. Because if I do it your way, I won't get my bonus. He was just very blunt with me. Damn. And so, but there are good leaders who are taking risks to fight the machine. There's also a younger generation of leaders that are coming up. The newer companies, the newer CEOs are raising these questions.
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And you start to hear things like triple bottom line and you start to hear these things. But you're 100% right. You know, the number of, look, the fact that I've forgotten all the businesses that come together. I've forgotten what they're called. But a few years ago, they put out a statement saying purpose really matters in business.
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But when I started, if you talk about purpose at work, you were just a weird-ass hippie. And every company has a purpose statement on their website, even if they don't follow it, even if it's just because they have to. But that's at least progress.
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Is that all this is for your transaction?
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I think, and I'm actually, it's funny you say that. People are very surprised by how close my sister and I are. They say, you know, what's it like working with your sister? Is that okay? As if it's some sort of disaster.
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And for them, I think they feel it would be. And I don't want to work with anybody else but my sister. And I talk a thousand times a day and we bounce between work and personal stuff. Yeah. And to answer your question, I don't know if there's a formula. I think one of the things that made us close as we grew up living all over the world. Ah, so you were your only contact.
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How do you define the value and the purpose? So we're conflating a bunch of things here, right? I don't think any of that's purpose either. That stuff is superficial and it's trappings. And none of that stuff makes for quote unquote culture either. Yeah. So just go back a few years.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
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So there was a time not that long ago where you're right, where you went to work simply to make the money to pay for your stuff. And you were friends with your neighbors and you had a sense of tribe with your neighbors. And you got some sort of belonging or community or moral guidance from church. And you had bowling on Saturdays and you had the tournaments on Thursday nights.
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And we had these things.
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Sunday dinners and all these traditions and institutions. The bowling clubs, the bowling leagues went away. Church attendance is down. We're not really friends with our neighbors. But we still have desire for all these things. And so a lot of pressure was put on work to give me these things that I used to get outside of work. So it's not all work trying to force these things on you.
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So we were the only common friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Some of it was the changing world around us. And we are demanding of our offices to give it to us because we're not getting it anywhere else.
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And that's totally fine.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And that's totally fine, by the way. Yeah. And that's totally fine. But when I talk about purpose at work, right, I'm not talking about something spiritual or anything like that. When we talk about vision, whether it's vision – the best companies sound like – they sound like social movements. Yeah. Which is scary to me because I don't... It's cultish.
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And by the way, but hold on. But you're conflating so... There's a swirl of stuff going on here. I think Ben clarifies the meaning. So you're right. It is cultish.
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And... That's not necessarily a bad thing because it means I believe there's a shared set of values. I feel like I belong. I feel like I found my tribe, right? The company actually does obey its values and would sacrifice its short-term money to uphold its values. Those are good companies. And when you say, oh, they'll just fire you, the bad companies will. Trust me. I'm with you on the tech.
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They say all the right things. They put the values on the wall, but it's all a punchline and they don't use them to make decisions. So you're 100 percent right there. But I'll take you to see some companies where they are treated right. They don't get fired simply because the company is struggling. And they are hired slowly because they try and choose people who believe in the same values.
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Who are cultural contributors rather than cultural fits, right? Which is I like it here. I want to give to the people to the left and right of me because they give to me. And they have a psychological safety when they come to work. They feel like someone's got their back. I guess what I object to… And those are beautiful things.
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That's what I think about. If I offered you more money to go have the exact same job with a different person, Would you take it immediately?
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Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
How old are your kids?
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But you're not following your own rules.
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But sometimes it does.
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I don't. I hear you. Yeah. I just appreciate the irony of the thing you're railing against is the thing that you fully embraced, which is if I offered you more, you said it's just a place to make money.
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To serve my family and I would get my community somewhere else. But if I offered you more money to work for somebody else.
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But if I gave you more money to go somewhere else, you wouldn't want to. You'd want to stay here because you quote unquote like it here. And you feel on some occasions that you actually are contributing.
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So there's a, if you care about this stuff.
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Like the messages you're spreading and especially on the daily show, you know, the stuff that you're putting out there in some way, shape or form was informing people and helping people understand the world and make sense of the world. That was the thing you were contributing to and it gave the work meaning. You didn't just come to work and be like, oh, I've got to work and write again.
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You're like, no, this is – I'm enjoying this because I feel like I'm advancing.
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So I'm bilingual. I speak English and American.
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So, you know, like kids who have French parents, you know, they'll like just start speaking French to their parents. They go between English, French, English, French. Well, I do that. Like when I talk to my parents or when I talk to my friends in England, I have an English accent. I use English vocabulary. When I talk to my American friends, I speak American. So I bounce between the two.
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So, by the way, I think you and I agree more than not, which is just my attitude is like... The world is the way it is. And if we're going to go to work, then work should at least feel like I'm contributing. And I want to go home at the end of the day, like, you know, if you work hard for something you believe in, it's passion. If you work hard for something you don't believe in, it's stress.
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And I would rather people, even if they work really hard, to be like, you know what? The sacrifice was worth it because I feel like my work has some value in the world. It meant something. When it's done right, it's gorgeous. But the problem is, and you said it, superficially people say the same words, talk about the same values. The difference is they're not actually living them or doing them.
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To go to your point about the why, a why is fundamentally an origin story. That's all it is. And a why does not change. You have one why your whole life. And that's it. Because you are the sum total of how you were raised. You have won why your whole life? You've won why your whole life.
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Now I'm going to be fighting with you before we go. Wait, what? Yes. Tell me more. Oh, and now we're out of time. You have one why. You have one why your entire life, because you are the product of how you were raised. Okay. That's, I mean, you're not gonna, like, you are who you are. Okay. And there's nothing that can happen in your life that will make you not who you are.
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My sister is 100% American, can't even fake an English accent. That's so interesting. They found these feral kids in India. And they found that there's a critical age for language. If they brought their kids back into society between the ages of 8 to 10, they could learn syntax and language and they could be fully integrated back into society. But if it was later than that...
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Now, you can pretend you're someone different. We would call you inauthentic. And when I uncover a why, literally all I'm doing is going backwards, discover the patterns of what made you who you are. And then I'm trying to put words on them. And it's the same for a company. Walt Disney, when it does things right, is fundamentally the origin story of Walt Disney's vision of the world.
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This escape from the stressful lives that we have to go into this magical place and we can leave reality for a moment. That's literally what it says in the plaque outside Disneyland, you know? And that's all, if you look at the beginnings of things. We can do a little, let's have a little fun. I've been having fun, just for the record.
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I've only been having fun. Tell me something specific that you've worked on in your entire career. It does not have to have been commercially successful.
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Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
But something specific that you worked on in your career that you loved being a part of. And if every project was like this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive. Something specific.
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Okay. Tell me of all of the amazing things you've done in this remarkable career of yours, what was it about the White House Correspondents' Dinner that stands out that you want to bring it up now?
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So you've had those experiences in other jobs. When you were at The Daily Show, you could fill the writer's room with whatever you wanted. I mean, you had a boss, but kind of.
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So if everything in your life was like that, game on. Game on. Okay. Tell me an early specific happy childhood memory, something I can relive with you. An early, specific… Happy childhood memory.
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The kids could only do like when you see like chimps learning to speak. It's like word association. Banana hungry. You know, they couldn't learn syntax. And so I think it also applies to accents. My sister was younger when we came to America, fully American, where I was sort of on that cusp. And so I had an English accent living here for years before I kind of lost it. But I'm still bilingual.
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Forties two. Okay. No, no, I'm being serious though. When you're, you know, a child, like under, you know, in school, like an early childhood memory.
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Because I think your memories at different ages are very... Yeah, definitely early specific childhood memories.
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This is something, a specific time, not just a thing you did regularly? No, no, no. This is one specific one.
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And of all the amazing things you had happen in this magical childhood that you've talked about, what specifically was it about this one thing that stands out so much that you want to talk about it now?
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So now what I'm doing is I'm looking for the connection between those things and saying, okay, that's the common factor, right? You're the first person I've ever talked to ever, and I've done hundreds of these, who said, I'm telling you the same story. I can hear that they're the same story, but...
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But you're the first person who can hear it, who's able to... Oh, yeah, I'm always cognizant of these things. So just to pay that compliment that you're living outside your own head. But this is the thing, which is where you find great joy is when you can bring the right people together to do something that matters and have a...
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a ton of fun doing it yes okay and that's sort of your purpose in life which is to bring people together to do something bigger than themselves and have a good time doing it right and if everything you do in your life you can is that is that is that yeah the merry-go-round we go to call it merry-go-round yeah and everything in your life is like that roundabout you that is what a game on is yeah and so the opportunity for you
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is to remind yourself of that, right? So whether you get a Lego merry-go-round or a picture of a merry-go-round or just that merry-go-round. Oh, this is, I like sentimental things. The merry-go-round is, it's your talisman. It's the thing that reminds you of why you get out of bed today. All you want to do in life is work tirelessly to create the merry-go-round, right?
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And the thing is, is because you have vision, we're going to make this thing fly. Yeah. Okay, so... People go, huh? And you go, you, you, you, and you. Yeah. Okay? And now they're all coming in and you're having a blast. And whether it succeeds or fails, it didn't fly. It did not fly. It did not fly. It did not. It did not fly. So it actually failed, if we're really honest with ourselves.
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But it didn't matter because it was the joy of the together and the fun, even with the vision, that made it worth it. It was the exact same thing for the correspondence dinner. You'd never said at any point – and I freaking nailed it. No, that's not the point. Right? The point wasn't the result. No. The point was the people coming together.
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Everybody- Has. Yes. And it doesn't have to be a happily childhood memory. So I did this with somebody a few years ago. And I said, tell me an early childhood memory. And they said, I had a horrible childhood. Yes. I said, well, tell me any memory. And they said, I had a very, very alcoholic, abusive father. And he would go on these drunken rampages. And I remember hiding in the closet.
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and I wrapped my sister underneath me to protect her from my father. And, you know, we're both crying as she's telling this story. She's a protector. She wakes up every day to protect those who can't protect themselves. I can bring myself to tears talking about it, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
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And she was struck by this pattern that she's at her natural best and she finds peace when she's able to offer protection to others from whatever it is. And so these patterns exist for everyone. They're not the same as yours. And whenever somebody hears that pattern, the result is goosebumps, some sort of emotional response.
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We're confusing struggle and joy. Yeah. So I went to Kenya this year and we went into the Mara and, you know, to the poor neighborhoods and we got to meet some remarkable, remarkable human beings. And I started to... realize that we from the West come in. I mean, it's like your story. Yeah. You know, it's like, we have it so good. Yeah. You have nothing. You live in a mud hut.
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How can you be happy? You know, I'll show you happiness. Come look at my house with all my stuff. Right? And all they do is smile. And you look at the children and say, they have nothing, they have no toys, and they've got a tire and a stick, and they're laughing. And there's data on this, that children that have more toys actually don't have as good imaginations.
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So she knows four languages.
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Yes, he's got a tire and a stick, and he's got an active imagination. And those kids, those boys and girls, all they do is smile and play. And I met these remarkable people who absolutely their life is difficult. And the walking four hours to sell. Right, yeah, yeah. It is absolutely a life of hardship. But they are happy. And they have joy in life. And they look after each other.
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And it's everything you said. When somebody needs a house, we help them build a house. And the sense of community they have. And it made me realize that we in the West are addicted to money. And we look at other people who don't have our addiction and we feel sorry for them because they don't have our high. Like it's a heroin addict feeling sorry for all the people who don't have a heroin high.
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And they're looking at us going, you're a heroin addict. Yeah. But it feels so good to be on heroin, right? And that's us in the West. We're all so intoxicated with what the money feels like. We've forgotten about community. We've forgotten about sacrifice. We've forgotten about giving. We've forgotten about helping. We've forgotten about imagination. And I went in thinking, what can I give?
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And I came out saying, what must I learn? I love that.
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Yes, yes. And the answer is service. Oh, damn. I have a friend who was struggling. She knows what I do, and she came to me and said, I need your help. I said, okay. So we got together every Wednesday for 90 minutes, and she told me what she was going through, and her marriage was falling apart, and her career wasn't going the right way, and her kids were driving her crazy.
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She wasn't having a good time. And every Wednesday, I'd give her some counsel and some advice, and she'd feel great. And that'd last for about two days. And then she'd go back, and then she'd come back next Wednesday, and she'd feel great. And you see this pattern. This went on for months. And I finally sort of remembered my own work. And I remembered, you know, sort of my own work in service.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
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And, like, I looked into Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, the 12-step program, the first step is admitting you have a problem. And if you master 11 steps... but not the 12th, you're going to succumb to the disease. But if you master the 12th, you're more likely to beat the disease. The 12th step is to help another alcoholic.
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It's service. That's the 12th step. So I said to her, I did a little social experiment on us. I said, every week we get together and I help you. And I'm realizing I need help too. I trust you more than anybody. You're my best friend. I love you. And I need coaching too. And I was being deadly serious. It wasn't a game. And can we split our time? 45 for me, 45 for you. She said, absolutely.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
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So the next week we got together and we spent 90 minutes talking about me. And she gave me advice and she gave me counsel. And the next week we got together and just by accident, it's not like we planned it this way, we spent 90 minutes talking about me. Within about two months, her life was back on track and she was golden.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
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So what I recommend to people who are struggling with whatever it is, I can't find love, I can't find happiness, I can't find a job, I can't find whatever it is I'm looking for. Find someone who's struggling with the same thing and help them find the thing they're looking for. And by the way, it reinforces everything that we've been talking about this whole time, which is community is the thing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
But when we're selfishly minded, we don't build community. Yeah. And if you look at all of those places that we have all visited that we love that have community, everything is about service. That's all it is. Well, I don't have the time. I don't have the energy. That's where the sacrifice comes from. We find a way to find the energy to help you build your house even though I got my own struggles.
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And the joy of giving time and energy, non-redeemable commodities, unlike money. You make more money.
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uh to someone to see the benefit that they derive has an impact on human beings that is hard to calculate a fulfillment that you get that is only can only be described as joy and the reason is because that is the biology of how we're designed that is mother nature's desperate attempt to get the species to survive and we will only survive if we help each other that's why it feels so good
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And that's what purpose is. Purpose for me, the deepest meaning of purpose for me is it's the opportunity to serve those who serve others.
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People describe you the same way. You know that.
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I don't think that's fair. No, he's so chaotic. I don't think I'm pure chaos. I mean... The thing that we enjoy about each other when we talk is we both enjoy chaos and finding the patterns in chaos. Yes, exactly. And I think that's what creativity is. I think creativity is the ability to find order in chaos. And I love chaos because chaos is where all the magic happens.
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Otherwise, everything's linear.
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Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
So, I mean, the simple answer is yes. I am absolutely, absolutely fascinated by the world order. This is not something we're going to solve in a podcast.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
We will. We've got like 50 something odd minutes. Perfect. Most world orders I can solve in 30. So I just, I find this, the world order just absolutely fascinating. And trying to understand how we got here as well, where we went from the Cold War, or Cold War 1.0, where it was very neat. It was very neatly organized. You had democracy and capitalists on one side and communists on the other side.
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And it was very clearly delineated that if you were a communist, we weren't your friends, and that was it. All the communists were on one team, and all the democracies and capitalists or those who aspired to be were on the other team. Play. It's very, very simple. And both were reasonably rational and played by very similar rules. Well, that doesn't exist anymore.
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And we now have ideologies mixed together. Our adversaries are also our trading partners. It's a complete mess and continues to get messier. And I'm absolutely fascinated by how our leaders don't really understand – the world that we're operating in and how we got here. And yet they're attempting to make decisions to manage it or lead it.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
So this is great because... All of your listeners are tuned in for this.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
I think your assessment is pretty spot on. Damn, we're in trouble. But like when I work with government or I work with military, like I'm constantly amazed at how much they know and simultaneously amazed at how little they know. And that's true for government and military. Those things live in this strange paradox.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And it's constantly amazing to me how good they are and how bad they are simultaneously. There are multiple reasons for that. One is – and it's the same in the corporate world, which is how we promote – There are tactical people and there are strategic people. Nobody's purely one or the other. You know, tactical people sort of know how to get things done. They're in the weeds.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
They can see the details. And the strategic people, a little more blue sky, can see sort of far off horizons. You know, the best strategic people aren't the best at tactics and the best tactical people aren't the good at strategy.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
What I found is fascinating, especially when you get to the higher echelons of government or military, which is the really great strategic thinkers know that they are bad at tactical thinking and surround themselves with good tactical thinkers. Okay. Mm-hmm. The really great tactical thinkers who find themselves in high-level positions think they're great at strategy.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And they don't even understand it. Think of it like marketing. Marketing is a little more ethereal. It's a little more blue sky-ish. Finance, a little more detailed, a little more in the weeds, right? Marketers know that they're bad at finance. Finance people think they're good marketers. Okay.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Where marketing people are like, you should probably get somebody in finance to look at that. I don't understand. Right? And so what ends up happening is the tactical people, if they get promoted into strategic jobs, they think they understand it. But they don't. And it's not that they don't understand. It's that their view is just too shallow. They're operating only with what they can see.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And they're not very good at making decisions based on what they can't see or very long term. They don't understand, like, if you pull lever A... then these things might happen. They just like, pull lever A, get this. And you're like, yes, and this will be the response to that. There's not that way of thinking. And I think strategy in general is one of those very misunderstood things.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
It's hard, it's amorphous, and it's sort of in the clouds. But you're 100% right. I think that would be my assessment, too. It's amazing that the decisions are being made by people who don't fully understand the nuance.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
And simultaneously, there are people there whose minds will blow you away how much they understand and how smart they are and how they understand nuance better than... Actually, no, no, I appreciate that. It's the duality that's so confusing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
I actually do. Because I think of myself as an idiot. And I mean this honestly.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
Why Are All Bosses Idiots? with Simon Sinek [VIDEO]
Which means I'm an idiot.