← Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
Simon Sinek Unfiltered: The Trap Leaders Must Avoid
01:06:49
Do businesses exist to make a profit or care for people? In this episode, Simon Sinek challenges a broken leadership theory and shares a new mindset for organizations to follow.
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- [00:00]
A
We have stupidity. We have insecurity. We have ego. We have all of the things, and I have them, too. Right? We have all the same issues as every other company on the planet. The difference is how we address those issues when we have them.
- [00:18]
B
Hey, great to have you back for another episode of the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast. This is a bonus episode. We just dropped the first episode of the year. The second six Habits Great Leaders avoid. We covered three in the last episode. On the first Thursday of next month, we're gonna look at the next three. Today, I have a guest for you that is going to inspire you and perhaps push you. Now, for the record, Simon Sinek hates when people go through his resume, so I'm not gonna do that. If I did, I'd tell you he's New York Times bestselling author, and I'd tell you which books he wrote, but I'm not gonna tell you the books. And. And I'd tell you about his viral interviews and such. But I will tell you, just personally, I have heard him speak many times at the Global Leadership Summit, and he is a speaker that's very principled and has pushed me. Sometimes I push back, but every time, I'm challenged by him. And this is an interview that is going to push you as well. So let's dive in today. It's valuable content. This is Simon Sinek. Simon, hey, man. It is a great honor to have you on the podcast.
- [01:26]
A
Nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [01:28]
B
I've been learning from you for years, and so my goal is to ask you at least two or three questions no one's ever asked you before and try to draw some untapped brilliance out of you as we go.
- [01:41]
A
I look forward to it. I mean, I've heard a lot of questions over the years.
- [01:45]
B
Yeah. I may not succeed, but I'm gonna try. I'll start with a relatively easy one before I throw you some curve balls. But you're sincerely one of the top voices on leadership alive today, which is amazing, but you didn't probably start out confident in your leadership. But was there a time, Simon, like, somewhere early on in your life, maybe as a kid or young adult that you recognize perhaps you had some leadership gifts?
- [02:13]
A
I don't think I ever recognized that they were leadership gifts. I mean, I'll tell you a story from junior high school. So when I was in junior high school, middle school, my best friend was Adam. And Adam and I had a fight one day, as little kids do. And when I got on the bus the next Day to go to school, nobody would sit next to me because Adam told him not to sit next to me. He was the leader of our gang. He was the leader of the pack. And I remember the distinct feeling that someone else was responsible for my happiness and my friendships around me. One person, and I had to make him happy. Otherwise I had no friends the next day. And it sort of, as a little kid, I was like, that's ridiculous. And I was a pretty young age, I started experimenting with, like, being my own self and really, like, baby steps, right? So I went to American Middle School. We wore jeans and sneakers and white socks and T shirts to school, you know, And I remember I started wearing black shoes with white socks. Everybody else wore sneakers, I wore black shoes, and I was just dipping my toe, right? And then by the time I got to high school, I started experimenting with brightly colored crazy socks. Every day I wore brightly colored crazy socks. And I sort of got more and more comfortable being me. I got more and more comfortable people making fun of me for that one thing that I was experimenting with. And I don't think it came until many years later where some of these skills that I had learned and some of these things that I had practiced, like doing what I believe and it's okay if people didn't like me for it, that I learned later would help me in a leadership position. Because I didn't think I was ever a leader until somebody said, oh, this person now reports to you. You know, I'm like, oh, I'm a leader now. And I made every mistake that you can make as a first time leader. So I don't think I've ever seen myself that way. And I think I've only started to see myself that way very recently. You know, I just sort of see myself as one of the group. But I've come to learn that, yes, I'm a leader.
- [04:32]
B
Yes, you are a leader. It's interesting you brought that up because one of the many things I like about you, you're very, very direct. No nonsense. I heard on one of your podcasts you talked about something about, like, you know, you hate when people. And this is my words, not yours, so forgive me if I say it wrong, but you said, like, people overstate friendship. Like, we're friends. Like, actually, we don't. We're not friends. And so I just kind of wanted to say we're not friends. We've never, I think our only conversation, you may not even remember, but at the Global Leadership Summit, we shook hands, talked for maybe two minutes and so that's the extent of our relationship. Besides, I've studied your stuff for a long time. As I look at you and observe, it seems to me, and I could be wrong, but it seems to me that you really not only enjoy, but you're great at taking a counterintuitive approach or mindset to a lot of things. Is that intentional? Am I right? Do you try to look at things from a different perspective, or am I reading that wrong?
- [05:33]
A
I mean, I'm very curious about other points of view. I'm very curious about things I don't understand. And I think by my nature, if I'm having a debate with someone, and I don't mean like me directly debating with them, though that's true sometimes too. But like, when someone in the world that I know has a different point of view than me, I'm curious why they have that point of view. Doesn't mean I'm still going to agree with them, but I'm always curious how the other side got to what they believe. And I don't think I'm inherent. I'm not a contrarian. I know people who, no matter what you say, they have to have the opposite point of view. That's not the case at all. But I'm curious what I'm not seeing, and I'm curious what I'm missing. And sometimes if it comes out as an alternative perspective, and you have to remember, I have strong opinions, loosely held. You know, I sound very confident in everything I say, but if you tell me one thing that makes me doubt myself, I'll be like, oh, yeah, that's a good point. You know, and at the same time, I rarely think I'm right. I just think I have a point of view. And I like when I have to justify that point of view. I like when people challenge me. Do I even understand my own logic as to how I got to my own point of view? Or does my logic crumble which forces me to evaluate my own point of view? I. I hold myself to the same standard. I'm going to hold somebody else to, which is I want to understand your point of view, but if I can find flaws in your logic, you got to go with me on the journey.
- [07:01]
B
Yes. Yeah. That is consistent with what it seems like. You would try to approach everything with the mindset of a student. And even critic might be too harsh of a word, but it seems like you just don't accept what is. You want to ask why, you want to understand how you can make it better. And it seems like you take what's common, sometimes commonly held leadership values and you pick at them in a, in a helpful way to try to make them better. That's what it seems like to me.
- [07:34]
A
That's true.
- [07:34]
B
Is there something you're picking at now that you see culturally? And it's just from my. Where I sit, I have some different strategies and mindsets today than I did five years ago because the world is very different. Is there something you're seeing now that maybe a question leaders aren't asking, they should be, or something that you see in this current environment? We need to be thinking different about the way we're approaching leadership 100%.
- [08:02]
A
I mean, we have to remember how we got to where we are right now in terms of understanding sort of leaders and leadership of the modern day. You know, when in the 70s and 80s, in the late 70s, early 80s, you had Milton Friedman, this economist, who sort of philosophized about what the responsibility of business was. And he wrote an op ed for the New York Times that went viral in the business world. And basically this economist, this world famous economist said the purpose of business is to maximize profit within the bounds of the rules. Right. Which speaks nothing, by the way, about ethics. Ethics is a much higher standard than the rules, right? But this was, for whatever reason, embraced in the day. And it has become so normal that when I say the purpose of business is to maximize profit, most people today would nod their head and say, that's true. No, that's not true. That is not the purpose of business. And the problem is all of the leadership theory that went along with that started to emulate that as the foundation. So you had leaders like Jack Welch who took over GE and he rose to prominence with this definition. And we started to see new behaviors like using people's livelihoods to manage the books prior to the mass layoffs did not exist in the United States. Prior to the early 1980s, it did not exist. It was for existential purposes only. We're going bankrupt. I need to lay off, you know, 10, 20% of the company. But just the normal machinations, the normal dealings of business. Oh, we missed our numbers. You know, we're profitable, just not as profitable as we promised. So you get to lose your job. And it ceased to be a meritocracy. It ceased to be a meritocracy. And short term, and short term, the goals became shorter and short term, this was all like. This all became popular in the 80s and 90s, and now it's considered normal. And so all the leadership theory that buttressed that purpose has to be thrown away. Thrown away. And we need to return to a time where we view the human beings who work for us as human beings, that we view the human beings who buy from us as human beings. And I'll give you one example of where there are many of where it's gone haywire. If you look at the ingredients of various food products around the world, whether it's cereal or candy bars or anything else, you will find that in the United States, it's filled with chemicals, carcinogens, dyes, that when you go to India or Canada or the United Kingdom or Europe, because of their laws and regulations, literally the same food company, the American food companies, are making different formulas in different countries. And our food is worse for us than theirs. So a candy bar in the UK is made with butter and sugar. Here it's made with partially hydrogenated oils or palm oil and high fructose corn syrup. The same candy bar is worse for you here than it is in the United Kingdom. But if you question the packaged goods companies, why are you making food worse? Why are you putting chemicals in our bodies and using regular food? They'll say, we obey the law. We're following the law of the land. As opposed to saying, how do we make a product that's actually good for the people who are buying it? We might shrink our margins a slightly bit, but it's the right thing to do. And it's because we don't view the customer as a human being. We view the customer as a wallet. And so I think that we need to go back to a time where there's more empathy built into the system.
- [11:47]
B
So can you tell me why are you so passionate about being a. You're a principal centered leader. You're value centered. Is there a reason? Was there something you saw early in your life? You seem to be fighting for what's right, fighting for what's true, and have almost like an intolerance for hypocrisy, profit without purpose. Why? What's that in you that you're speaking out when others don't?
- [12:21]
A
First of all, I'm a hypocrite too, so let's put that on the table, right? I am the furthest thing from perfect. So, you know, somebody wants to go and look at all the things I've read. I'm sure I've changed my mind on a million things. So. Yes. But I abhor hypocrisy and I absolutely will take accountability if I find myself saying things. And I'll reconcile It right. Having said that, everybody knows what fair is. Like this is the funny thing about ethics is you don't need to hire lawyers to tell you what's ethical. Like, we know, right? Like there are some gray zones. But like when a pharmaceutical company owns a patent to an essential drug in order to meet financial goals, raises the price of that essential drug by 500%. 1,000%, 1,500%. Like you don't need a lawyer to tell you that doesn't feel fair. You know, that doesn't feel fair. And I think that, I think that people can rationalize making unfair, unethical, or what we would consider wrong decisions because it benefits them. And if you look at the incentive structures of least public companies, but a lot of other companies too, most public companies, we're not incentivizing our executives to make the best decisions for the company. We're making them to make the best decision for the stock price. And so guess what they're going to do. And good people, I fault them not good people can rationalize unethical behavior when it's in their best interest, when it's in their personal interest. And I just, I don't. And it's kind of the times we live in, right? Which is there was a time, so take World War II, the greatest generation, World War II. There are more cases of young men committing suicide because they didn't get drafted, because they didn't get called to action. Right. There was this desire, this intense desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. And somewhere in the mix, and I largely blame business, but somewhere in the mix, we started overly prioritizing ourselves over the community. Look at presidents. I don't care if you're a Republican or Democrat. Presidents asked us to sacrifice our short term interests for the good of the nation. Presidents said to us, this is going to hurt all of us in the long term, but it will benefit all of us in the long, in the short. It's going to hurt us in the short term, but benefit us in the long term. President said not everybody can always win. Some of us aren't going to come out well. We're going to do our best to hold those people up, but the majority will benefit from these decisions. And these were uncomfortable and difficult, but we understood the point of sacrifice for the greater good.
- [15:03]
B
Yes.
- [15:04]
A
You know, you see, you bring these things up and I bring my soapbox.
- [15:09]
B
Out, no, no, no, that's what I want.
- [15:11]
A
I get rid of it, I'm gonna drop down.
- [15:14]
B
That's what I want. You to do. And then, okay, if business, the purpose isn't profit alone, how would you define what's the purpose? If you're, you're teaching now and we want to be people centered, human being driven, what is the purpose of business?
- [15:32]
A
So the purpose of business is to benefit three things, right? And by the way, money is very important. And let's just take one step back. I think of business like a car, right? The purpose of a car, the reason you buy a car is not to buy gas. The reason you buy a car is to go somewhere, correct? Right. And the gas helps you go there. You absolutely need gas. Otherwise, any vision you have of any place you want to go is pointless. As I think it was Thomas Edison who said, vision without execution is hallucination. Right? And so a business is like a car. A business doesn't exist simply to make money. It exists to go somewhere, to add something to our lives. It's to make our lives more entertaining or to make life easier. It's to benefit us in some way, shape or form, even if it's just to make us smile. And I absolutely want businesses to make money because I want them to continue advancing their vision. And the leader of that company is the one sitting in the driver's seat, looking forwards, not looking at the gas gauge, but looking, how do we get here? And I hire people like a CFO to be like, all right, I think we have enough gas to get there, right? And it's a team that fills the car. But we all want to go wherever the leader's looking out the front window. So you're damn right we need gas. But. But that's not the reason we exist. When companies articulate their visions, you can hear what their priorities are. Most vision statements are terrible. To be the best, to be the most respected, to be the biggest, that's all about the company. That's all about the gas in the tank. It's not about what's out the front window. And so for me, a company benefits for three reasons. To serve people, to serve a purpose, and to make money and to make profit. But if you've noticed, profit comes third, right? So absolutely, you gotta make it. But first you need somebody who's looking out the window and saying, how do I look after the people with me in the car? So purpose, people and profit.
- [17:26]
B
So you wrote in that zone in Leaders Eat Last. There's another book you may have read. I think it was Rabbi Daniel Lappin. His book is called Thou Shalt Prosper. In it, he says, and this Is a loose translation. He says basically, business is serving people. Like if you meet someone's need, it's. And you help one person, you provide value to their life. So much so that they're willing to give you their hard earned money. You've done something that's loving and serving to them. If you serve five people, you've just made five times the money. But you did it by serving people. If you serve 100, you have to hire someone else. And therefore you have someone sitting next to you. Now you're employing them and helping their family. And so it really starts with service. It is a problem. We see it everywhere. How do you even start to make a change? Because from where I sit, it seems like the food in America is still gonna be unhealthy and the companies are still not gonna care that much about people. What do you do? What's your message?
- [18:20]
A
Well, I think first of all, we have no accountability, right? So in Germany, where there was a huge scandal because Volkswagen was fiddling the numbers for the emissions, the CEO went to jail, right? Because it was so unethical and so illegal, they went to jail. In the United States, we don't put our leaders in jail. There's no accountability, right? So these leaders can get away with anything. Their companies will be found guilty of a crime, but the people who are pulling the levers aren't. And I think when you can get away with making abhorrent decisions and having zero accountability and a large corporation, you know, loses a couple million bucks, a multi, multi, multi, multi, multi, multi billion dollar corporation loses a few bucks, they'll take it off their books, they'll charge it back to the customer, and they'll go on with their lives. And I think, I mean, let's take something that happened that's horrible, right? Horrible. Which is we saw the assassination of the executive of healthcare, okay? And we see what the response is. There are people who are justifying murder because they see the inequality of how health care companies treat us. And many of us either have directly or indirectly, friends and family struggled with legitimate insurance claims because the insurance companies have to meet their financial obligations. And so why do we have to get to the point where this voice is only being like this? The voice of the people is only being heard after the assassination of like it's apparent and we cannot justify murder ever. But people are rationalizing it, right? People are rationalizing and heroizing a murderer because the pain that goes alongside of it. And so I'm asking corporate America, right? Which is, shouldn't we have these conversations before somebody gets to a boiling point where a horrible crime is committed, right? And so I think businesses, the good news is there's a young generation of leader that's coming in that's raising these questions, that's speaking like us. I shouldn't have a career, right? Nobody should be giving me a microphone to have these opinions because it shouldn't be an issue. But the fact that it is means that there's a bubbling. It means there's a demand, right? And this is the populist movement that we see on the left and the right of the political aisle sweeping across America. Because what we're seeing, and by the way, not just America, the world, because what we're seeing is an unbalanced system. Nobody minds that a senior executive makes more money. We don't even mind if they make multiples more than me. That doesn't bother me. I don't care that they get a parking, better parking space. I don't care that they fly in a private jet. I don't care that they get a big corner office. None of that stuff bothers me. What bothers me is that when I see that same executive announce layoffs to protect their own personal bonus, that violates the deep seated social contract between the leader and the group. Which is the reason we give our leaders all those perks is because there's an expectation that goes back to the dawn of humankind. There's a deep seated social expectation that our leaders will sacrifice their short term interests for the good of the group. That's why we give you more. Think of it like a parent. If I told you I'm a father and I always eat my dinner before I feed my children, you'd be like, you are the worst parent in the world. You feed your children before you feed yourself. That's just how it works. It's exactly the same in an organization.
- [22:03]
B
So, Simon, could you get personal with me? And I'll give you really got me.
- [22:07]
A
All fired up real quick.
- [22:09]
B
Well, we're 20 minutes in and you're spitting fire. So that's a good sign. If you could get personal, it would mean a lot to me because you're a smaller version of corporate America. You've got your team that you work with. And I'll give our community an example that they would not see at the beginning of most podcasts. I'm going to ask our guests, what can I help promote for you? And I ask you that and you're like, nothing. I'm here to serve you. You know Whatever serves you. And so you think that's a genuine other centered approach. So I see that in you. I applaud that in you. I'd love to know in your team and your sphere of influence, the people that you work with, what are other examples of how you are putting them first? Just in the team that you work with. Just to give me some ideas, maybe, so I could do it better. What's something maybe this year you've done that's different or something that your team would say? I love it when our leader cares for us in this way.
- [23:06]
A
Yeah. Our company is not utopia. Right. And despite everything I write and teach, we have personality conflicts. We have bad decisions.
- [23:17]
B
Always. Always. Yes, of course.
- [23:18]
A
Bad decisions that we make. We have stupidity, we have insecurity, we have ego. We have all of the things. And I have them too. Right. We have all the same issues as every other company on the planet. The difference is, is how we address those issues when we have them. And that's something I feel very proud of. So when there's tension between two people, I want them to address it. I want them to have a difficult conversation. If I have to have a difficult conversation with somebody, I'm going to learn those skills of how to have that difficult conversation because I want to nip it in the bud. Even if it's really, really uncomfortable, I'm going to sit in the mud with that person. If somebody's underperforming, I'm not going to scream and yell at them and fire them. I'm going to be like, what's going on? Are you okay? I know you're better and smarter than the work you're giving me. So either something's changed that I don't know about or something's going on in your life that I can support you with if I need to. And if you don't want to tell me, that's fine. But I need to know what's going on.
- [24:17]
B
So you're going to care for them not just by giving them benefits, but you're going to care by addressing problems, being transparent, be willing to push through conflict.
- [24:27]
A
I view them. I view work relationships like all relationships. Right. Which is if you have problems with your spouse, the default is not divorce. You don't be like, oh, we had a fight, you're out. We had four fights this week. I'm out of this. Right. There's an agreement that, whether tacit or expressed, that we will do the work for the good of the relationship. We both agreed that this is a relationship and we'll do the work. And if you ask the best marriages, like the people who I like, I want a relationship like yours. If you ask them, what's your secret? They all say the same thing. It's hard work, and we do the work. Well. It's hard being friends. You do the work. It's hard being a colleague. It's hard being a leader in a company, and you do the work. It's all human relationships. And if you care about the relationships and you care about the organization, which is the same thing as caring about the family, then you take it upon yourself to do the work. As imperfect and bumpy and complex as it is, we do the work. And I think I'm a believer in this thing called the infinite mindset, which is you're never done, but you're always striving to do better. There's no finish line. There's no such thing as best. But every day I strive for better. And I think that's how we approach it.
- [26:00]
B
I'd love to know about the soft skills that you see that are necessary for today in leadership. And something that seems a little bit unique with you is you're almost prophetic in your kind of public keynotes and very, very clear, very, very strong. And then when you interview someone on your podcast, you're in this whole different gear that you are so present in the moment, maybe more present than almost any interviewer that I've heard that it's almost like you have no plan in the podcast except for to be with the person and then follow wherever it goes, which is risky unless you can really do that. Tell me how you think about personal interactions, because you seem to approach them with a little bit different finesse than most people.
- [26:51]
A
Oh, thank you for recognizing that. So when somebody puts me on a stage or gives me an opportunity to come on a podcast, it's an opportunity for me to share a point of view that may be different or to challenge the conventional wisdoms. Not because I think I'm right. I just think I have a point of view. And I think it's important for us to be open to different points of view and to sometimes have our own beliefs of how the world works. Challenged. Right. Myself included, by the way, when I bring somebody, when I invite somebody, I've been on the receiving end of interviews, case in point. And one of the things that drives me nuts is when they have done too much research on me or my work and they ask me questions that they know the answers to. So, Simon, what are the five Elements of an infinite mindset. I'm like, well, clearly you read the book, so why don't you tell me, right? Why do I want to answer questions that you know the answers to? To me, it's pandering and it doesn't make for an interesting conversation. And so when I invite people to come join me on my podcast, I pretend that I'm going out for dinner with them. And when I go out for dinner with somebody, I don't go read all their books and watch all their talks in preparation for dinner with them. I show up with an open mind to meet someone I don't know. You know, that's it. Maybe we have a friend in common, maybe we don't. And so I have no choice but to be present at dinner because otherwise I won't learn. Otherwise I'm going to waste an hour and a half. And so I sit down with somebody with a genuine desire to get to know them. And I come in purposefully, under prepared. And remember, people over prepare because they're afraid of looking dumb. Right. I under prepare because I want my guests to look smart.
- [28:46]
B
I'm writing this down. So you're purposely unprepared. Can you talk to me more about not unprepared?
- [28:53]
A
I'm under prepared.
- [28:54]
B
Purposely underprepared. Tell me, where else besides an interview would I want to be purposefully underprepared?
- [29:03]
A
I think anything where you're going to interact with other human beings. So when I give a talk and I do a Q and A session, they always offer me the opportunity to have planted questions. Absolutely not. I want to have questions live. I don't know what they're going to ask. Could go in any direction. Podcasts people offer. We're going to send you the questions in advance. Well, that means I'm going to think about the answers in advance. That's not fair to an audience. For me to plan what I'm going to say, that's not fair. And I think one of the reasons people want the planted questions or want to see the questions in advance is because they're afraid of looking dumb. Right? And they want to be prepared to give answers. And the problem is, is it's canned and it sounds artificial and it's inauthentic. And at the end of the day, I'm not afraid of answering questions about things that I know about. I'm afraid of answering questions things I don't know about. So if you and I are going to have an in depth conversation about the migration patterns of European swallows, it's not going to go well for me. I don't know. And I don't even care, you know? And so I am going to be. I'm going to be like, stuck. But I have an interest in human relationships. I don't know everything about them, but I have an interest in them. Like, if I spontaneously started asking you questions about your kids, do you think you could tell me without any preparation about your kids?
- [30:29]
B
Of course. You do, right?
- [30:30]
A
Of course. Of course. And so I want people to talk about the thing that they know and tell me their opinions about the world that they have an opinion about. And so I like to come in cold because what you'll get is. And if I'm a little tired, I speak a little slower today. I'm probably a little jacked up on caffeine, which is why I'm like all soapboxy right now. And so you get what you get. And I kind of like that.
- [30:56]
B
Yeah. I would recommend, like when people. So I try to listen or read or study people on two levels. One is the content, and then two is I try to get in the mindset behind it. And so I would recommend people listen to your podcast. It's a little bit of. What's the optimism? The name of it is A Bit of Optimism. A Bit of Optimism. I came intentionally underprepared that I had to look up the name of your podcast. Listened to probably seven episodes. And I would encourage them to listen to how you ask questions because I think in kind of interpersonal relationships, from leadership to everything. Today, one of the most missing soft skills is just the ability to be present and ask questions. And you're really, really good at it. And so I like listening on that level. The same would be true in leadership presentations. I'd like to know the mindset behind it. I'm assuming that on those cases you're mostly prepared. Or would I be wrong? When you're doing a keynote, let me ask it in a different way. You're one of the most top requested speakers at the Global Leadership Summit, the biggest, arguably biggest leadership event in the world. And I'd love it if you'd answer the question not humbly, but truthfully. Why? What do you do that's unique and intriguing? And why does everybody want to hear Simon Sinek?
- [32:18]
A
So this is true. I never wanted to be a speaker. I stumbled upon a message. I stumbled upon a point of view that benefited my life, this concept of why, and it benefited my friends lives. And my friends asked me to share it with their friends and I kept saying yes, and I started speaking in people's living rooms. Literally, that's how it started. And then somebody said, will you come talk to our company? And I said, yes. And that sort of. It was an accident. My career is an accident. And so, like, people come up to me and say, hey, Simon, I want to be a public speaker, and can you give me some advice? I'm like, oh, amazing. What do you want to speak about? They're like, I don't know. I'm like, no, no, no, no, you got this wrong. First you have to have deep, undying belief in something. And then you look for the best avenue to share those, share that belief. And if speaking is a good avenue, you take it. But when you say, I want to be a speaker, that's like saying, I want to be an influencer. I want to be famous. Like, but what. And so I. I accept the job because it's been very helpful to help me get a message out, but I know it's not about me. And. And there's. There's two mindsets to show up. There's a taker's mindset and there's a giver's mindset. So a taker's mindset says, I say yes to the gigs so that I can sell more. I say yes to the gigs so that they'll like me, whatever it is. And you can tell a taker, they start with a slide that's right behind them with their website and their social media handles. And they'll start by telling you their credentials when they stand up, or their clients. And within 30 seconds, we, as social animals who are constantly assessing and judging each other constantly, whether we can trust each other or not. In 30 seconds, whether we know it or not, we've assessed this person is there for them. They're there for themselves. It's obvious to us. And so I'll listen. I might find you interesting, but my guard is up, right? So I've cultivated a giver's mindset, and nearly 100% of the time, when I have to go on a stage, I will mutter out loud under my breath for me to hear right before I walk out on stage. You're here to give. I don't want anything. I don't want your standing ovation. I don't want you to buy my book. I don't want you to follow me on social media. I am here because I have a point of view. I believe that point of view has value. Other people believe that point of view has value because They've invited me to share it with you. And so I'm going to give you absolutely everything I've got. Whether the audience is five people or 5,000 people, you're going to get the same, Simon. And if you like it, then if I get a standing ovation, I feel that I've earned it. If you buy a book or something, I'm grateful. But it's not the reason I came. I came to share. And I think people can assess, because I don't talk about me in the opening salvo, that people can assess that my tone of voice, the way I answer questions, like they ask me a question, I don't say, well, you can read that in chapter three of my. I answer the question by answering the question, even if it's not in my interest. And I think there's just a level of authenticity that comes through that I think makes people relax. I've worked very hard to almost entirely remove the word you from my talks. You'll rarely hear me say, unless there's a real reason for it. Here's what you need to do to be a great leader. Here's what you need to do. I say, here's what we need to do to be better leaders. Here's what we need to do to be better citizens. I don't put myself above anybody. I'm on the same level, right? I know what I know, and there are people who are experts in things that I don't know. And so I am part of the problem and I am part of the solution, just as we all are. I think I try hard not to lift myself up, but to bring everybody up with me. And I think people, they crave that.
- [36:28]
B
And they don't know they crave it.
- [36:30]
A
I think it comes through.
- [36:32]
B
There's a level of authenticity that is genuine care rather than self promotion. And you kind of got get on your soapbox about kind of corporate America. For me, where I sit, a lot of people want to be speakers and influencers. And they'll do a talk and I'll ask them how it went and they'll say, well, I liked it. I felt good about it. I go, who really gives a rip what you felt about it? Because, you know, it's not about you. And so much of so good, so much of that kind of influential type of leadership is the commercialization of content self promotion. And it's really sickening, it's saddening, it's heartbreaking that you can't watch something without an ad, without a promotion, without a follow Me. And I think it might have a little bit of benefit in the short run because you get some quick wins, but you lose in the long run because you lose trust in authenticity. And that's.
- [37:27]
A
So. Funny thing, you just said that. And I didn't even realize this until you just said it. When I'm done with a gig and I've come off a stage, invariably somebody will come up to me and say, how'd it go? And 100% of the time I say, you'll have to ask them. Like, it doesn't matter if I think I knocked it out of the park. It doesn't matter if I hit all my talking points. You'll have to ask them. I'm quicker to beat myself up. What I forgot.
- [37:53]
B
Right.
- [37:54]
A
But it's very funny. I didn't even realize it until you said it right now, which is, oh, I think I did great. The best you'll ever hear me say is, that was fun. That was fun. You're 100% right. And we have an incentive structure for it. You know, we've people who used to get famous. You know, scientists used to be famous. You know, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Marie Curie. Like, scientists were famous in their own day.
- [38:23]
B
Now it's video makers and.
- [38:27]
A
People who strove for world peace became household names and theologians became famous for inspiring us. And now people are famous just for the sake of being famous, because they've tricked the algorithm better than everybody else. And I don't fault the people who are doing it. It's the economy that we've created, and they're playing by the rules of the economy we've created.
- [38:57]
B
So if I pushed back and said, but it's easier for you to say because you are famous, but what would you say then?
- [39:07]
A
I found myself here by accident. I mean, come on. Like, nobody. Like, if you're an actor or a musician, you might can imagine, if things.
- [39:17]
B
Go well, please don't pursue fame, pursue impact.
- [39:22]
A
When you start writing a book. By the way, I purposefully never put my picture on the COVID of any of my books. And I fought with my publisher. They want to put my name huge at the top of the COVID I. I want it in, like, mouse print on the side. So we compromise what we put it at the bottom. But, like, my face. Jack Welch wrote a book called Winning and put his own picture. He wrote a book called Leadership, put his own picture on the COVID Like, that's a problem, you know, like, unless you're somebody I'm genuinely interested in. Like, if you're somebody famous that I want to learn about. Like, I'm okay with Andre Agassi putting his picture on his book because I want to know about him. You know, that's different. But I believe in belief, right? It goes back to that car analogy, which is I believe in. Of having a belief so strong in something that it inspires you to want to do difficult things, that it inspires you to want to sacrifice. And people like, this question always comes up, like, you know, you have to know when to quit. Oh, you should never quit. You know, like, we've got. And my attitude is, you should quit when the sacrifice no longer feels worth it. And so you look at like. So when I started getting invitations to share my point of view and share my message, and I was. I was preaching a point of view about the way business could work that was different than the norm, right? And by the way, when I started, if you said the word purpose at work, you were just some hippie weirdo, right? That was when I started. And as I started going and I started getting invitations and speaking started to become a career for me, by accident, I found myself on the road all the time. In fact, I downloaded an app, stupidly downloaded this app that scrapes my calendar and tells me, like, when my flights are, you know, sort of help me. But unfortunately, it also scrapes my history, assuming it's in the right format. So it misses some because they're in the wrong format. In my calendar, it'll tell you the total number of flights I took per year. And I went back and looked a few few years ago, I took 178 flights in one year.
- [41:38]
B
Wow.
- [41:39]
A
Right? And if you live that life, you're exhausted. Dating, there's no such thing. You go out on a great date, you're like, I had such a good time. Are you free in six weeks? You know, and even if you are home, you don't want to leave the. I never wanted to leave the house. I just wanted to be at home. That was the treat. And just a quick aside. I refuse to have white sheets or white towels in my home. I have no white sheets and no white towels because they remind me of being in a hotel.
- [42:07]
B
Oh, wow. Okay.
- [42:10]
A
But the reason I kept doing it for so many years is because I could see that I was having an impact. And the sacrifice was worth it. The sacrifice was worth all. And I went in eyes wide open. None of those. I knew that I was destroying my social life. I knew that I was making myself exhausted. I knew all those things. But it Felt worth it for the impact I was having. And so now the questions I have to ask is like, okay, it has its own momentum now. Is there a delta of impact when I give a speech now than when I used to? And that delta is small because I used to go into a room with a lot of people who'd never heard of the ideas. Now thank goodness more people have heard the ideas. So now I'm reinforcing, I'm entertaining. But am I making the same kind of impact? And so now the sacrifice doesn't feel it is worth it anymore. So I'm scaling back the amount of speaking because to me, even though I might be at the height of my earning power, it's not worth it anymore.
- [43:07]
B
So what is more worth it to you now? If, if there's maybe a little bit of you're not feeling like you're making new impact, maybe some of the same people hearing you over again, what are you thinking about now? That's different. That is more worth the sacrifice.
- [43:22]
A
So I'm writing another book, which I enjoy. I don't believe in writing books unless I have a book to write because writing a book is awful. It's a horrible experience. And so it really has to be worth it to go into that deep hole. But I will write another one because I'm really obsessed with this idea of friendship which you and I talked about off camera before we started for a little bit. But to be honest with you, I don't know. And I'm saying yes to a lot of things just to see. And I'm in this sort of magical period. I feel like I just graduated college and I'm a little bit, you know, starry eyed and a little bit uncertain and, you know, and so it's, I'm in the magical period of exploration. I'm saying yes to some things that I'm used to doing. I'm saying yes to things that I'm not used to doing. And I'm working harder at saying no to things that I don't think have the same level of impact as they used to.
- [44:18]
B
So I think that's a great place to be. I think you're probably a little bit, or maybe even a little bit more than a little bit younger than I am. And I think a lot of people here in our community would be hitting some level of success, maybe more than they expected in their 30s, 40s, and when you kind of get there, if you do have any kind of level of success, you start to analyze what's the best use of my time economically impact balancing with other priorities. And then you start to, because you have options to do more, you start to be more selective. I think it'd be amazing if people could do it before the big success. Meaning when you're 28, you start to prioritize where you put your time. And the part that you're talking about friendship is I have to pick your brain on this because I am fascinated with the idea. If you said If I picked 100 subjects Simon's going to write about this, I wouldn't have friendship in my top 100. And then I would say to you, why in the world that when there's been so much written on it, you have to have something that's new or different. So tell me the story behind the passion on friendship.
- [45:29]
A
Well, this is why I'm not afraid of ChatGPT because it wouldn't have predicted that this is what I was going to write about and it definitely doesn't know how I'm going to write about it. So if you think about the world we live in, right? There's an entire industry to help us be better leaders. There's an entire industry to help us be better parents. You can read a book, download a video, pay for a course to help you eat better, to help you exercise better, how to help your marriage. That's a whole industry, right? And yet there's precious little on how to be a friend. And if you look at the problems we're having in the world today, with increased levels of anxiety, depression, inability to cope with stress, suicide in the worst case scenarios, even the obsession with longevity. Longevity, friendship fixes all of those things. Friendship is the ultimate biohack. And yet if you ask people, do you think you're a good friend? Most people say yes. And if you peel the onion just a little bit, we discover that most of us are actually pretty junk, right? Would you cancel on a friend for a meeting or would you cancel a meeting for a friend? Oh, but my friend will understand, right? And we do this all the time. We deprioritize our friendships, sometimes for our careers or we talked about before the best marriages, the most successful marriages. What's your secret? It's hard work and we do the work. How many people think friendship is hard work? If you have a blowout fight with a friend, they violate your trust. What we usually do is end the friendship. That's not what you do in a marriage. You actually work through it and understand the roots of it and is it repairable? Like there are people who are relationship therapists. How come we don't have friendship therapists?
- [47:10]
B
Brilliant, right?
- [47:12]
A
How come I've never gone to therapy with a friend to rescue the relationship? Because there's extreme tension in our friendship. Sometimes you do have to break up in romantic relationships. Do you know how to break up with a friend? Do you know how to foster a friend? Do you know how to make a friend? How do you have a difficult conversation with a friend? How do you listen for a friend? How do you be with a friend when they're struggling? How do you ask for help from a friend when you're struggling? I'm asking questions that should be second nature, and yet I'm asking questions that most people don't know the answers to. And so what we end up doing is guessing. And so I'm not writing a book about the biological benefits of friendship that's been written about, you know, plenty. I'm writing a book about how to do it. How to friend as a verb. Right. And I hear from so many people the struggles they have, the opportunities they have, and the loneliness epidemic that's only exaggerated by social media and cell phones. Right? Sure, we can attack the social media companies, which is part of it. You got to go after the dealers. But I also want to go to the source of the addiction.
- [48:17]
B
It's fascinating to me because five minutes ago, I thought that would be an unusual subject for you to ride on. And then when you start talking about it, I actually think it is maybe way more obvious than I thought about, because every part of our life that matters has a friend with it. And the common statements, and they're common, but they're so true. Like you're the average of your five closest friends. I mean, everyone says that it is ridiculously true. How you think, how you eat, how you dress, where you go, what you read, what you listen to, who you're becoming is friendship. And now we've got kind of great leaders. Marcus Buckingham, you can't get him on a stage without talking about love. For years, this organizational leadership, and now he's talking about how you have to love people. And I think it's fascinating in the workplace. What's your recommendation on friendship? Can we be friends and work together? Should we be friends?
- [49:18]
A
Yeah, I mean, of course. I mean, you're spending more time with your colleagues than you are your outside of work friends. The trouble with work always comes with the fact that it's still a professional environment and there's still a professional dynamic. And so there is something called emotional professionalism. Right. Like, you can't act out at work if you're having a bad day. You can't give one word answers in a meeting. You know, you can apologize that you're off your game. You can ask for a little bit of grace, but we still have to be emotionally professional. And you can be friends if there's a hierarchy. But again, there's a professionalism that goes with those relationships. It's more complicated in the hierarchy, but. But of course you can be friends with colleagues. And sometimes it's hard. You have to code switch. Sometimes we're at work and sometimes I need your help with this. And it's a work thing. It adds levels of complication, but it adds level of. There are all kinds of friendship dynamics where there's level of complications. Like I'm really close friends with my ex girlfriend's brother. Well, that's a level of complication, isn't it?
- [50:25]
B
Complicated. Right, right.
- [50:27]
A
Or I'm still friends with my ex and she's married now. Well, there's complications that go with that too, you know, and so like, it's not like we're not used to dealing with friendships with complexity and work is just one of them.
- [50:46]
B
I agree. I'm looking at a bunch of people I'm friends with right now and they're laughing because we have. We have wonderfully complex relationships and mostly wonderfully and somewhat complex. A couple questions.
- [50:58]
A
There's another word for complex, which is depth.
- [51:02]
B
Depth, yes.
- [51:03]
A
Which is if I have multiple. If I only know you at work and you're just a work friend and outside of work, I have no interest, that's fine. That's a work friendship. Let's call it what it is. You're not my friend, you're my work friend.
- [51:14]
B
You would appreciate this more than most. There's a someone who's sitting in here. I won't say her name, but we've worked together for years and they had a loss in the family. And I called the other day and I didn't realize it, but she called back, left me a voice text and said, when I lost a child, you're the first to call. When I lost another family member, you're the first to call. When I lost this family, you're the first to call and just said, that means the world to me. And so in some ways, like I think, you know, I look at you as just this, you know, brilliant organizational mindset. Brilliant with a conscience. And I think that's something you would like. That's the way we treat people. I wanted to ask you a couple questions, and then I want you to tell us more about when the book's coming out. Cause I think it's interesting. Is there something that we're not asking you that we should be asking? Are there questions we're not asking, issues we're not addressing that are obvious to you? When I work with other church leaders, they often ask the wrong questions. And I'd say you're not asking the right questions. Is there anything that we're not asking that you think is more important that we should be paying attention to?
- [52:20]
A
I think, you know, I can speak around the question. I can't tell you a specific question that people should be asking me. But I think very often we preoccupy ourselves with the things that we can see, and we lack the curiosity to delve into the things we can't see. Like, do you have the courage to replace your judgment with curiosity and say.
- [52:41]
B
More about that, please?
- [52:43]
A
We are very quick to judge people who see the world differently or disagree with us and pick any hot button political thing that's become, you know, pick anyone right on either side of the aisle. We will accuse the other of being the sheeple. We'll accuse the other of being stupid, blind, naive. Right. Uneducated, whatever. We both say that we level the same accusations at each other. And I think we rarely say, I wonder how they came to that point of view.
- [53:19]
B
Exactly, yes.
- [53:21]
A
And I'll give you a real life scenario. So a dear friend of mine grew up very differently than me. She grew up in rural Tennessee, no money. I grew up sort of middle class, upper middle class, and like in the suburbs, you know, on the East Coast. Right. Very different worldview. And she buys into some conspiracy theories that I don't. And she came to visit me, and we were just. We became friends first, and then we started to learn about sort of some of those things later in the friendship. And she came to visit me, and we went for a long walk in New York City. She came to visit me in New York, and she said something that I thought was nuts. And I said, how can you be so stupid? And she stops in her tracks and said, you just called your friend stupid. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. And she and I had a decision to make. Do we break the friendship? Do we just not talk about that stuff? Or do we learn how to talk to each other? So, like, the whole Thanksgiving, crazy uncle, just don't bring it up, you know, the peacemaker. The family learns how to change the subject. You know, she And I didn't follow any of those rules. We decided because we care about each other, we share all the same values, we make each other feel seen and heard and understood that it was worth it to us to learn how to talk to each other. And we got really good at. When somebody said something that old us would say, you're nuts. We learned how to be curious, we learned how to say. And by the way, genuinely not just going through the motions, right, Genuinely, tell me, tell me how you got to that opinion or that point of view. And then whatever they would say, we would learn to say, what else? Go on, say more. And invariably, every single time, we could always find something we agreed upon. And when we got to that level, the other would say, that's true, I agree with that. And now we built up from there and we became much more open minded to each other's points of views. And it doesn't mean we agree on everything, nor does it mean we agree on how the world works, but we both understand how we got to where we are.
- [55:43]
B
Yeah, we are being, because of algorithms and what we're being fed in social media, YouTube, the news even, I think we're being taught to hate. And I would say as a human being and in leadership, like in leadership you could have a real targeted, we hate them type of thing and have a little corner of the world and whatever. If you want to really, truly make a big difference and you want to have a broad team, I think one of the most important things you have to do is understand how someone born, maybe with a different color skin, maybe in a different part of the world, with different parents, with different education, different values, different problems, different opportunities, if you can't understand how they could get to a different place and even vote different than you, you can never really have a true big impact. You can still disagree, but. But you have to be able to listen long enough to understand. Oh, I can see how somebody would get there. And that's one of my. I'm very, you know, very opinionated. I have some pretty big extreme views like you do, but find that without empathy or hard to listen and a willingness to learn, we're gonna limit our impact every single time.
- [56:59]
A
Yeah. And even if you're triggered, even if you're triggered, even if it's not attack or defend, it's. Look, you know this from your faith, right? Which is you have to love everyone, but you don't have to like everyone. Right. Those things are very different.
- [57:14]
B
Very different. Yep.
- [57:16]
A
And I don't have to like someone but they do. They do have the right to go through life in their way. And though I may disagree with it, it's my job to try and understand it. And just as I want them to clear a path for me or at least stay out of the way, I want to clear a path for them or at least stay out of their way. The one thing we're not allowed to do is hurt someone because of our beliefs. We can't. That's, that's, that's the one rule, that you may not hurt somebody else because of your beliefs. You can disagree with them and you can avoid them, but you can't hurt them.
- [57:51]
B
Do you want to make a difference? You might make a point. Most people are trying to make a point. Yep.
- [57:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, like my. There's this documentary filmmaker named Dia Khan and she was a young activist and there was a white supremacist rally and she went to the counter rally and she tells the story of how she and her friends would spit on the white supremacists. And when they went home, they're all high fiving each other, very self righteous, right? And at some point she realized as good as she felt, she realized she was making a total of zero impact. And she started to recognize that spitting on the white supremacist, though, it feels good. Nothing, nothing. If anything, it emboldens. And so she started to deconstruct her own way in which she dealt with those that triggered her. Or she had, you know, sort of really aggressive disagreements with. And what she learned to do was listen. And in her case, she actually was trolled by white supremacists to the point where the police told her to stay away from open windows. That's how bad it got. And she ended up moving to the United States. She lived in the uk. She's this Muslim woman who offered them a safe space to feel heard. And you can watch it. She made a movie called White Meeting the Enemy. And she doesn't agree with them, but she doesn't fight with them. She tries to understand them. And something happens over the course of time which is they now trust her and consider her a friend. And they can no longer reconcile their racist view of the world with the fact that they consider this Muslim woman their friend and they start dropping out of the movement. And to your point, listening, and let's not call it a soft skill because hard and soft are opposites. These are human skills. These are the skills we need to be better humans. And her ability to hold space and listen to things that are so triggering that our desire to fight is so strong. To suppress that and replace that judgment with curiosity doesn't mean you agree, doesn't mean you affirm, is when you see her do it, if she can do it, we can do it for pretty much anyone. Because none of us are going to have those. Very few of us are going to have conversations that level of philosophical disagreement.
- [60:09]
B
Yeah, that's very true. If someone can get there after that starting point, then we should be able to make progress ourselves, right? Simon, I'd love to ask you and invite you to be as personal as you're comfortable. Is there something in your life that maybe most people wouldn't know about recently? A fear that you've overcome, an insecurity that you've made progress on, something that you've done that's really special and meaningful to you, that we don't talk about a lot. But you say, I'm really proud of this.
- [60:41]
A
I mean, the simple answer is yes. You know, I think one of the things that we forget is that when we talk about, like, things like work, life, balance, I'm like, it's you, it's you. And if you have a fight at home, it's going to affect you at work. And if you have a fight at work, it's going to affect you at home, it's you. The stress you have at home, it's you. And so the thing that I've learned is the more comfortable I become with myself is the more, the better I am. Out loud. I am fully aware that I'm not specifically answering your question, but, I mean, I'll share one. I'll share one thing, because there's a few things that the answer is yes to me in relationships, right? Definitely. Avoidant. You know, I'm avoidant in connection, right? Like, as soon as I get close to somebody, the walls go up and I've learned to break them down. And it took a remarkable human being who had patience with me to help me learn that how to receive love, it's hard enough how to give it, but how do you receive it? And I'm indebted to that human being. And it goes back to friendship, which is this thing called life is way too difficult to do alone. It's just too hard. And we're social animals. We're not designed to do anything by ourselves. Like, we believe solitary confinement is a form of torture. And if you want to watch somebody lose their mind, then take away all the people, right? And for any of us who think that we can navigate relationships Work, career, life, addiction, uncertainty, whatever it is, existential crisis, big things, little things. If any of us think that we're strong enough to do any of those things alone, you've already lost the game. And so the only way I could have come to these realizations, you know, I could say I did the work, but I did the work with somebody who stood very close to me. That gave me the courage to do that work.
- [62:56]
B
That's a gift. It's interesting because that's really intimate for you to share that. And it feels like it takes a little bit of courage to say, I push people back and I'm letting the walls down. What's interesting is I think almost everybody has their own version of that. I know I do. Of we feel safe when we control the distance. And so the fact that you would just talk about that, maybe there's someone else out there that would give them the courage to let their own version of that person into their life and do the same thing. And so I just want to express gratitude to you. You've inspired me. You've frustrated me at times. I've argued with you when you've said things emphatically. I have grown to appreciate what you said. I'm a student.
- [63:46]
A
What was one of the things that pissed you off?
- [63:48]
B
I would say there were times when you would. And I actually think you don't do this as much. You would tell leaders what to do. And I would say, are you sure you're sitting in the seat of the guy you're criticizing? You know, different times where. And I said, don't make the leader look bad. And the people cheer. And I don't think you do that as much. But there are. A couple times, years ago, I'm like, come on, Simon. And I'd push back. But also what I thought is, if I knew you, I think.
- [64:20]
A
And by the way, I think you're right.
- [64:22]
B
Yeah. I think if we had that. If we had a long lunch together and let the walls down, I think we'd probably have a blast pushing back and forth with each other, because I would respect your principles and I would enjoy pushing you and having you push back even harder and seeing where it ends up, I think it'd be fun.
- [64:40]
A
I welcome it. I welcome it.
- [64:41]
B
Yeah. The book. Is there a release date or is there a title? No. Okay. So there will be a book on friendship coming out sometime.
- [64:51]
A
Yeah. Probably 20, 26, if I get my act together.
- [64:54]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I'll look forward to that. I want to tell our audience about other books of Yours start with why is unbelievable. Leaders Eat Last is incredible. The Infinite Game is a must read. I have not read Together is better. So I'm strategically underprepared by not reading all of them.
- [65:16]
A
That one, you could have read it in the commercial break.
- [65:19]
B
Yeah, I didn't know anything about the book, so I.
- [65:21]
A
It's a sweet little book. I love that little book.
- [65:23]
B
Excellent. The book we want to give away today is Leaders Eat Last. And so if you want to win one of five copies, hop over to YouTube and just type in. Let's type in. I want Simon's book. Just type that in the comment section. And I know you don't like to self promote, but I want to give people a chance to find out more about you. Where do they go if they want to absorb more content?
- [65:46]
A
I mean, all the usual suspects. You know, we have some great online learning@Simon, sinek.com Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. I mean, you know, we're pretty good about making the content fit the place. So you may not see the same thing on Instagram as you see on LinkedIn, et cetera.
- [66:06]
B
Yeah, and I do want them to go to the podcast too.
- [66:08]
A
Oh yeah, the podcast.
- [66:10]
B
Yeah, 100%. As one who does a podcast, I appreciate that you're putting the listener first more than promoting commercializing. It's just you can feel it and I appreciate that. So, Simon, thanks for your generosity, your time, appreciate you being here and you helped us get better. And I always say at the end of the podcast, we know everyone wins when the leader gets better. So thanks for helping us win. Even though we're not always going to try to win, we're also going to try to serve. And we might eat last because that's what leaders do. So thanks so much, Simon.