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- [00:02]
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- [00:39]
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- [01:23]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
Christine Diana.
- [01:25]
Diana Ransome
What was one bad productivity tip you've received along the way?
- [01:28]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
Well, I have one that sounds really bad on its surface, but actually is a fairly good life and work lesson. One of my professors in journalism school, I believe this was sometime after 9 11. We were all familiar with the fact that in a crisis, in a breaking news situation, you as a reporter would maybe have to get up and go out and like report on the street, have a long day. He said when crisis hits in the newsroom, the first thing you should do is eat a sandwich. It's counterintuitive, but what he meant was like, take care of yourself first. Cause you don't know how long you're gonna be out. You don't know how long your day is gonna be. And I think that's sort of like if you scale that to life, you know, it's like no matter what job you have, you're gonna need to take care of your body and your mental health and your mind first.
- [02:15]
Diana Ransome
Absolutely. I love that.
- [02:16]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
And your stomach, Great advice.
- [02:23]
Diana Ransome
This is from the ground up. I'm inc. Executive Editor Diana Ransome and.
- [02:27]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
I'm Editor at Large Christine Ligorio Chavkin. Today's episode Optimism and Leadership.
- [02:39]
Diana Ransome
So Christine, for today's episode, I spoke with Simon Sinek, who's the founder of the Optimism company. He's also host of a podcast called A Bit of Optimism. You know what's really interesting? He got Joe Biden to appear on.
- [02:52]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
His podcast he did, yes. Recently.
- [02:54]
Diana Ransome
Yeah, totally recently. And apparently Joe Biden reached out to him.
- [02:58]
Simon Sinek
Wow.
- [02:59]
Diana Ransome
I mean, this is a good guess.
- [03:00]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [03:01]
Diana Ransome
So the Optimism Company. Are you that familiar at all with Simon?
- [03:05]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
I'm not as familiar with the Optimism Company, but I'm familiar with Simon. Yeah. He's the author of many business books. I spoke with him, I think mid 2023, for a little magazine interview, and he's great. He's great at speaking. Speaking about his ideas.
- [03:22]
Diana Ransome
Yeah, he's very efficient.
- [03:23]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
Yes, yes.
- [03:24]
Diana Ransome
Yeah.
- [03:25]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
It's one of the most efficient interviews I've ever done.
- [03:28]
Diana Ransome
Well, so the Optimism Company is basically a media company. I think somewhere along the way, Simon realized that people really, really like listening to him. And, you know, the whole start with why was this foundational book that a lot of entrepreneurs to this day quote to me constantly, you know, it's like, where's your why? What's your why? This constant refrain. And he realized, like, well, if people like listening to me so much, maybe they want to. They want to learn from me. Let's start this media company. So the Optimism Company is basically like a media and education company where there's this, like, leadership training and capsules involved. And I think he teaches a couple of the courses. And he also just has other people teach classes too.
- [04:13]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
And it's like his thought leadership umbrella company. Right. I mean, like, it's the sign. It's science Simons. Anything he does goes under the Optimism Company.
- [04:20]
Diana Ransome
Absolutely.
- [04:21]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
Okay, cool.
- [04:21]
Diana Ransome
Yeah, I think that's cool. Yeah. So he's working on books all the time too. So there were a few that everybody's heard of. Leaders Eat Last, the Infinite Game. And of course, start with why. I think there's another one. There's a children's book. Ooh, he wrote a children's book.
- [04:36]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
Interesting.
- [04:37]
Diana Ransome
Yeah.
- [04:37]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
So, Diana, what's your why? What's your why now? Talk to Simon.
- [04:40]
Diana Ransome
My why now? So, to be honest, I think people could use a little bit of pep talk from Simon Sinek. You know, maybe they could use a little bit of optimism. The country's going through a lot of turmoil right now. We talked about a variety of things from Gen Z in the workplace to just various other workplace issues and just the conversation about not forgetting yourself and to how to get the best from yourself is. Seems like a good thing to talk about. And interestingly, we jumped into the conversation by talking about being unproductive and the benefits of that.
- [05:13]
Simon Sinek
I think, like so many people, especially sort of the A types, we think we're in control of our own schedules. And we think that we can slow it down and stop it whenever we want, but we like being on it. And when we went into lockdown, the hamster wheel came to an abrupt stop. And you sort of, sort of looked around and thought, hmm, I think I'll get off, you know, and you realize, at least I realized I had no control over any of it. And it was stopped for me. And it was a blessing for all the fear and anxiety and insanity that was that period. It was a time of self reflection, but also a time of recognizing that slow had value in our lives and that productivity probably wasn't the best gauge of a good life. And so being unproductive is something I don't mind now. I don't feel like I have to prove that I milked every second out of every day anymore. You know, sometimes I just want to do Lego. Sometimes I just want to watch tv, Sometimes I just want to go for a walk. And there are people who would argue, and probably myself included, that all of those blank spaces are important for creativity, and they're important that they are somehow contributing to productivity, blah, blah, blah. But the reality is, in the moment, they're nothing. And there's an element of risk. It's playing roulette because I can watch TV and get no ideas. I can go for a long walk and have nothing. And so this is when you have to resign yourself to unproductive being. Okay, because not everything has to contribute to something. Sometimes going for a walk is just going for a walk. It's not about idea generation.
- [06:40]
Guest Speaker
Well, sometimes it's just nice to give your brain a rest, too.
- [06:44]
Simon Sinek
I think that's actually one of the problems when you understand sort of how ideas happen. Our conscious, rational parts of our brain, the parts of our brain responsible for thinking, the parts of the brain that are responsible for weighing the pros and cons. The part of the brain that's responsible for our expertise and use in the brainstorming session, that part of our brain has access to the equivalent of about 3ft of information around us. Our subconscious brain, the brain that wanders and ruminates, that part of our brain has access to the equivalent of 11 acres of information. So every movie, every book, every conversation gets stored somewhere, but you don't have easy access to all of it. And so the brainstorming session and weighing the pros and cons and accessing your expertise actually isn't the best place for creativity. That's the best place for asking a question or posing a problem. And then usually our best ideas hit us. You know, when we're lying in bed or going for a run or standing in the shower or going for a drive. And it's when we're not quote unquote, thinking, but our brains are still ruminating. Our brains are still trying to solve the problem. It can't solve a problem or answer a question that hasn't been asked. So it doesn't just solve random problems. And the problem is whenever we have the opportunity for blank space, like sitting on the subway or waiting for someone who's running late or sitting in a waiting room for a doctor's appointment, we can't help ourselves. We fill those blank spaces. You know, when somebody goes to the bathroom, when you're in a restaurant, the first thing we do is we pull out our phones. But there's magic in just sitting back and taking the world in. And what I've learned is that's when actually ideas happen, and it is unpredictable. And so you need to leave lots of these blank spaces for creativity to happen. And we're so obsessed with our phones, we're so obsessed with filling blank space that we actually are less creative and don't allow for ideas to happen.
- [08:32]
Guest Speaker
So I've been hearing that you've been talking a lot about friendship lately, and I know you have. The book of fables touches on the togetherness and that sort of thing. But are you looking into friendship next?
- [08:44]
Simon Sinek
Yes, friendship is my obsession. If you think about it, there's an entire industry in hundreds of books written about how to be a better leader, how to be a better parent, how to find love, how to eat better, how to exercise better, and yet there is precious little for how to be a friend. And if you look at some of the challenges we face in the world today, you know, rising levels of anxiety and depression and suicide in the worst cases, even people's struggle with coping with stress, or our obsession with longevity, it turns out friendship fixes all of those things. Friendship is the ultimate biohack. And if you were to, like, approach some of your favorite relationships, friends who are in relationships that you admire, and you're like, I want a relationship like them. And if you ask them, what's your secret? They all say the same thing, which is, it's hard work and we do the work. Now, how many people describe friendship as hard work and doing the work? So few of us, and most of us think we're good friends. But if you peel the onion just a little bit, turns out most of us are crap friends. You Know, like, would you cancel on a friend for a meeting? Would you cancel a meeting for a friend? Oh, but my friend would understand. Well, how come it's not the other way around? How come the person you have a meeting with, you say, hey, I have a friend in need. I need to cancel this meeting? And it turns out we're not very good at prioritizing our friends, and we don't do the hard work of managing friendship. You know, if a relationship is in trouble, we go for therapy because we hope to repair that relationship. Well, when was the last time two friends went for therapy to repair their friendship? I am obsessed with that, as you can tell. Like, you get me going, wind me up. I just keep talking about it.
- [10:20]
Guest Speaker
It happens in entrepreneurship, too. You know, two people who were friends, and they start companies together, they might seek solace from a therapist in the same way. But you're right, you know, people don't seek therapy when they're friends. So I want to ask you, like, how did this realization come to you? Were you a bad friend?
- [10:37]
Simon Sinek
I have some very good friends in my life, and I've realized that, especially through Covid and lockdown, there was a set of us that were there for each other during extremely stressful times. Reinventing our businesses or just being there for the stress of COVID I established a rule during this time, which we follow to this day, which is no crying alone. If you're overwhelmed by anything, you pick up the phone and you say, do you have a minute? And I realized that one of the reasons I think I. I was very healthy during that insane period was in part because I had my family nearby and in part because I had extremely good friends who I learned to be more vulnerable than I probably ever been with a friend.
- [11:20]
Guest Speaker
How does this concept of maintaining, I guess, close ties with friends translate for entrepreneurs and business? Obviously, it's lonely being an entrepreneur. That's what they say.
- [11:32]
Simon Sinek
Yeah, it is lonely. It's true. But I think all the skills of being a friend are essential skills for managing all kinds of relationships, like how to fight. When you're an entrepreneur, especially if you have a business partner, there are fights. And sometimes those fights destroy businesses, and they definitely destroy friendships. And the question is, do you know how to fight? Do you know how to listen to make another person feel heard? Do you know how to fight with someone to get to resolution versus fighting to prove them wrong or for you to be right? I think that's a very simple place to start, you know, and I think knowing how to do the Hard work of friendship is invaluable across all relationships, but especially in business ones.
- [12:13]
Guest Speaker
I remember when I was. I sort of first took my managerial role in journalism, and I remember people telling me, oh, you can't be friends with people who you supervise. And so that kind of. It felt limiting and it felt like, oh, that's too bad, because I really like this person. I would love to potentially be friends with them. But then. So when do you abide by those rules and when do you not?
- [12:36]
Simon Sinek
So you can be friendly with people at work, but when there's a hierarchy, and, you know, friendship sometimes violates the hierarchy. Some of the skills of being a friend, like I said, learning how to listen, learning how to fight, learning how to find resolution are essential in any relationship. But the degree to which you're going to go vulnerable with a friend, I would not recommend doing that at work, though being vulnerable to some degree is essential at work. So, for example, I call it confident ignorance if you don't understand something. For people in leadership positions in a company, we very often think we have to have all the answers or be right all the time because we think that our credibility depends on our rightness or our clarity. Nothing could be further from the truth. And owning it is the thing, right? Like, you don't want to be in a meeting and be like, I don't know how to read a P and l, believe it or not, nobody ever taught me, can somebody please show me? Like, don't do that. But definitely say, in a meeting, hey, you may not believe this, but I actually have no idea how to read a P and l, believe it or not, no one ever taught me. And so can we just take a minute? Can someone just explain this to me? If you just own it, that's vulnerability and owning it. And if you're having a bad day, or if you had struggles at home, hey, folks, I've been really struggling with something at home. I just ask for a little grace and a little patience. I'm totally off my game. Owning vulnerability, being vulnerable at work is essential. But to literally go weak, to cry, to express absolute confusion, uncertainty, go to the depth of self doubt, for all of your insecurities to be revealed. Work is not the place for that. That would be emotionally unprofessional. Just like we wouldn't want people to bring that level of emotion to work, nor should we. But it has to come out somewhere. Work can't fulfill all of our needs, but neither can friendship. Like, you know, but friends are the place where you can have that deep vulnerability for good reasons. We have to conform to societal norms all the time. It's an ideal to say, oh, I'd love to be my true self all the time. And we should all be our true selves all the time. And we shouldn't have to conform to society's ideals. And in theory, that is a great idea. The problem is, then community and society would break if we were all just rampant individuals. Like some degree of conformity to societal rules, decorum, professionalism, things like that are essential for society and the community function. But it's in those intimate relationships in those private spaces. It's with those 1, 2, 3, 4 people that you can be the most truest honest version of yourself. You have to have the outlet. You never want to be in a position where you edit yourself because of what would society think? Like to edit myself with my closest friends because what would society think? Well, society is not in my house with me and them right now. And so I think the willingness to go to those depths makes you comfortable being vulnerable. Which means when you do struggle at work and you do want to say that you need help and you do want to ask others for their opinion and you do want to admit that you made a mistake, it's much easier. Easier if you learn the skill of vulnerability with friends.
- [15:39]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. At the same time, you want to promote friendships at work. Right. Because they say that, you know, when people like employees are friends with, have other friends who are at work, it sort of promotes this level of. Of course people feel better and they like work coming to work every day.
- [15:56]
Simon Sinek
It's freedom of core and camaraderie and. Absolutely. I want people who work together to be friends. And sometimes it depends on the people. But if there is a hierarchy, sometimes friendships work, but sometimes they don't. I had it happen when I was a new leader and I had one direct report and I decided I was going to be the best boss ever. And I was going to. She was going to be my friend and I was going to be her friend. And it was going great, and she loved me and I was the cool boss and all of that. And then I needed something done and I asked her to do it. And she's like, nah, I don't feel like it. And I was like, what? But I need you to do this, you know? And it kind of broke. And so I realized I can be friendly, but at the same time, I can't be friends.
- [16:37]
Guest Speaker
Right.
- [16:37]
Simon Sinek
For some people, that's just a hard thing to come to terms with, but it is what it is.
- [16:41]
Guest Speaker
Switching gears a little bit here, we ran a story recently that kind of went into the idea about Gen Z is having a hard time at work. And we quoted a study, you know, it interviewed 966 different business owners or managers and said that, you know, for some large percentage, something like 45%, said that Gen Z suffers from, you know, a lack of professionalism and they just don't have this work ethic. And so as a result, a lot of them are getting fired in sort of significant numbers. And I wanted to hear your take on this. Like, how does one get this next generation of employees to do the work that is required that they need done? What's your advice?
- [17:26]
Simon Sinek
All right, so let's take a step back first and let's think about how we got to where we are now. Employees show very little loyalty to companies, and companies show very little loyalty to employees. Right. These are not the days where you give a whole career and get a gold watch at the end of your career to one company. Right. Those days are gone. In fact, there's an entire generation, when I talk about the gold watch, they have no idea what I'm talking about. But let's just take a second and say, let's look at the 80s and 90s and 2000s where the concept of mass layoffs became normalized. It didn't exist prior. Prior to the 1980s in the United States. Did not exist. It was for existential reasons only.
- [17:57]
Guest Speaker
This is your Jack Welch sort of thing.
- [17:59]
Simon Sinek
Yeah. And what we started to see is we started to see that the deal of we'll take care of you and you'll take care of the company broke where now we would use your livelihood to manage the books where we're profitable, just not as profitable as we promised, so you get to lose your job. And so for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And so loyalty was broken by companies to employees, and we will care for you. Broke first. And so the equal and opposite reaction is now employees quit very easily and they show very little loyalty to the company. And they're just playing by the rules that companies set. And so if companies want that relationship to change, then it's companies that have to change the rules. So they're either firing people or quitting easily because there's no dynamic of loyalty either way. And so companies need to do the hard work to effectively lead and build culture that says, we see you as a human being, we care about you as a human being, and we're going to help give you that education on how to grow as a human being, which includes things like how to manage stress, how to communicate stress, how to communicate challenge and difficulty, what professionalism even looks like, and help you take yourself on to be a better version of yourself. In so doing, that person becomes a better, more productive member of the team because you're helping them build the human skills that they've been lacking and missing for a long time. Because we used to get some of that at work and now we get none of it. And productivity is the thing that everybody's obsessed with. We have incentive structures that reward outcomes but not behaviors. And so there's a big rebalancing required. So if companies are upset with how employees are performing, can we blame generational differences? Sure, that's a component, but that can't be the whole reason because there's a relationship at foot here. And at the end of the day it's the people in charge that have more authority anyway to fix the ship. I can't ask a 22 year old and an entire generation of 22 year olds to get their shit together so that this company can work. Well, I think the people who've had more experience and have more authority can take the lead now. Is there responsibility from the younger generation? Of course, they have to step in and play the game as well. If we're going to ask you to take yourself on and help you, then I expect you to take yourself on and ask for help. And if I show patience, I expect you to do the same. But I think companies bear more responsibility than they're taking on.
- [20:19]
Guest Speaker
I think there's also this expectation that people just know these things innately versus you're going to learn it on the job. Like you should have a level of professionalism, right. When you're out of college, for instance, that you maybe don't have. There's also this other element of people not wanting to give tough feedback. Let's say, for instance, you're not coming to work at 9am, you're coming at 10 or whatever it ends up being. And so the feedback you're getting is like, hey, so we expect you to be at work at 9, but you're doing a great job.
- [20:51]
Simon Sinek
Right?
- [20:51]
Guest Speaker
You know, it's this constant like validation, even though you're not necessarily doing a great job. So there seems like a management imbalance.
- [20:58]
Simon Sinek
I mean, as you said, there's multiple reasons for it. There's fear that if you give feedback the wrong way that there'll be sort of hell to pay or you'll be accused of something. And the term toxicity and toxic work environment is overused. Every experience of discomfort doesn't mean that there's toxicity. There's absolutely toxic bosses and toxic cultures, but they're not the norm. They're rarer than people think. There's more of them than we would like, but they're rarer than people think. And like, just experiencing discomfort, like uncomfortable feedback is not toxicity. Now, not all people in leadership positions are good at being good leaders. I remember I went out with a friend of mine, we went for a walk, and she wanted to ask my advice. And this is how the sentence started. She says, my boss is a horrible person. And I interrupted. I said, oh my God, does she go home and kick her dog? Is she rude to her? Is she horrible to her children? And my friend goes, no. I said, oh, okay, so we don't know that she's a horrible person. All that we know is that she's a horrible boss. Right. So there's a skill set that's desperately lacking, but it's not necessarily her character that is flawed. And I think we're too quick to say somebody is a horrible person in either direction or we label the person rather than the behavior. They're lazy as opposed to they're acting lazy right now. And I think that's a big part of it. Going back to what I said before, which is teaching those human skills. Are we teaching our leaders how to lead or are we just promoting our high performers and expecting that they know how to lead? Like you're putting people in a leadership position, you just assume, just like you said, young people are coming into the office and we're assuming that they have professionalism and they understand it. Well, we're assuming that when we promote somebody because they hit a bunch of numbers a few years in a row, that they have any concept of how to lead other human beings. If you don't train people how to lead, you train them how to do their job when they join the company, but you promote them and give them nothing. So maybe we need to start teaching people how to lead. And then guess what? We're going to have better leaders. So I think.
- [22:50]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
Can we stop here for a minute? I just want to pause and talk a little bit more about the Gen Z in the workplace stuff that Simon's bringing up.
- [22:59]
Diana Ransome
Yeah, I mean, it's really fascinating. And I think the fascinating thing that he pointed out was that it's not necessarily like Gen Z doesn't know how to be employed or they're bad employees. It's just that the leadership structure at most companies isn't really capable of managing them. And in fact, the leadership structure basically needs to be revamped.
- [23:21]
Simon Sinek
Right.
- [23:21]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
And this is something that Simon has said before is like that no one teaches you how to lead. Right. Like leadership itself is something you have to learn over time and learn by doing. And that can lead to a lot of failings along the way. This seems like it is one right. By managers all over.
- [23:36]
Diana Ransome
Totally. But it's also interesting because it is kind of generational. Right. You have like Millennials or Gen X, they understand, understand or they seemingly understand the workplace and how to, you know, to do the things. But maybe, right, maybe Gen Z. And the problem is they're basically saying Gen Z doesn't understand it. But what Simon was saying is that basically you need to. They do understand it, but they don't like it and they want to be led in a different way. They want to be managed in a different way. And frankly, it's not their responsibility to learn how to manage, it's your responsibility as the boss to learn how to manage.
- [24:11]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
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Christine Ligorio Chavkin
Did he have any advice on how managers can actually lead better?
- [24:15]
Diana Ransome
Yeah, I mean, it starts with a little bit of inspiration, but he'll dive into it more right after this break.
- [24:26]
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- [25:06]
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- [27:10]
Guest Speaker
How does the company inspire people?
- [27:12]
Simon Sinek
Well, there are many things. Number one is give them something to believe in. Just like a car doesn't exist just to buy gas, a car exists to go somewhere and gas is the fuel to go somewhere. And the reason we like getting in the car is because we're excited for the journey of the place we're going to go. Well, if a company is a car, a company doesn't exist simply to make money. Money is a fuel. Money is a fuel to go somewhere and give people some sort of excitement that they're going to join your company and go somewhere, see something, do something, contribute to something, give them a reason to come on board, give them a reason to work hard, give them a reason to work late beyond simply more gas. So I think most companies lack clear vision and you can easily tell. Just go look at the vision statements on their websites or their purpose statements. And their vision statements say something like to be a billion dollar company by 2030 or something, which is not a vision and it's only relevant to the people who are going to profit off of that. Give people something that they contribute to that will leave this planet, this company, this society, the people you work with, your customers, somebody in better shape than you found them. That's number one. Number two, make decisions based on that thing. A lot of companies say the right thing, but then when they're, when push comes to shove, they don't make decisions that reinforce that thing and hire people who share your values. Like we want to come to work with people who view the world like we do, who treat each other like we would treat each other. And that's why we are good fits in some companies and not good fits in others. Like can you imagine me in an investment bank? Oh, My God, it'll be a disaster. Right? Because my values are not the same as many of those investment banks. Like, can you imagine me working at General Electric? Whoa. Right. Like, they won't like me and I won't like them. Well, then I shouldn't work there, no matter how much money they pay me. And so you get the sense. And maybe General Electric now is a kinder, gentler place, but I would have hated working for Jack Welch.
- [28:57]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [28:58]
Simon Sinek
So give people a reason to come to work and treat them well and make them feel seen and heard and understood. Let them be human beings when they come to work. Don't force them to put on a mask.
- [29:07]
Guest Speaker
I think it was during the Great Resignation, where entrepreneurs were largely saying, I'm sick of coddling people. Like, my employees want this, they want this. And I'm bending over backwards and I'm giving them this and job interviews and doing this. And they felt like they were coddling these people too much. And it kind of sounds like you're not suggesting they coddle, but you are suggesting that they take extra care. Is that fair?
- [29:30]
Simon Sinek
I mean, you can love your children without overprotecting them. You can take care of people without overcoddling people. You can push people to run a project or take on a leadership position that they may be afraid to take on because they don't feel like they're qualified and give them the top cover and support and not do it for them. Or if they screw something up, you'd be like, oh, my God, what are you going to do to fix it? As opposed to, why can't you do anything right? Or as your point with the overcoddling, which is, they're there, everything's fine, and then not putting anybody in any kind of position where they could fail. So we want to put positions in people where they can fail, but, you know, we want to throw them in the deep end, but they have to know there's a lifeguard. So overcoddling is not letting anybody ever go into the deep end for fear that they may take a gulp of water. I want people to take a gulp of water. I want them to experience the humility of screwing up a project. It sucks, Especially for high performers who get straight A's and went to an Ivy League school and they never failed at anything. You know, it hurts them the most. But I want to put people in positions where I stress them their skillset, because that's where they grow and will learn lessons and will outperform. And by the way, doesn't always Work, sometimes it falls flat on its face, and then if I put them in too early, I have to own it. Hey, I'm so sorry, but if it just went haywire, I'd be like, okay, what'd you learn? Didn't go so great. Now let's do it again.
- [30:49]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [30:49]
Simon Sinek
So I think I agree with you over coddling is not good for parents and it's not good for leaders. But being caring and protective as we are, putting someone in stressful positions so that they can grow and learn and find out what they're capable of, that's magic.
- [31:07]
Guest Speaker
You may have answered this to some degree already, but how do you scale inspiration? So let's say you're, you know, you're somebody who is kind of like ingrained in the Simon Cynic way, like you. You definitely hear hear what you're saying and go practice what you preach at the job. But how do you get others to do the same thing?
- [31:24]
Simon Sinek
Very simple. It's called the law of diffusion of innovations.
- [31:27]
Guest Speaker
Oh, yeah, I knew you were going to talk about that.
- [31:29]
Simon Sinek
It's a religion for me. When I first learned about it, I became obsessed with it. Basically, the first 2.5% of your population are your big idea people, your innovators, your Steve Jobs, your Elon Musk's, your Richard Branson's, your Sarah Blakelys, your Carissa Bodners, and then the next 13 and a half percent of your population are your early adopters, higher risk tolerance, willing to try something new, expend time, energy, or money to be a part of something that reflects their own beliefs. The majority, which is the bell of the bell curve, which is most of us, want the bell because that's where businesses succeed, right? And then your laggards, the last 16%, the only reason they affect any change is because you have no choice anymore. And that's the problem with the which is when we want mass market success or mass market acceptance of an idea, we usually aim to the middle. We usually aim to the bell with advertising, marketing, whatever we do. But the problem is those people have a low risk tolerance. They don't want to try something until someone else has tried it first. When I learned this, I realized that if I can obsess only about early adopters, the people who share my values, who can see my vision without me having to convince them or offer them their money back or offer them any kind of promotion, the ones who are just willing to be a part of it, if I get enough of those, I can create my own tipping point. And that's what I did when I discovered this idea. And the way you attract early adopters is by starting with why. You talk about what you believe, not what you do. So what I learned about starting with why, and I learned about the law of diffusion, I set out to do an experiment on myself, which is to make my own tipping point. And all of the things that I did, I did without a marketing budget, I did without pr. And I did it by word of mouth. And I had the discipline to say no to people, to work with them. When they said, convince me why I should hire you, I said, don't, you're the wrong mindset. But people who said to me, you're onto something. It's not perfect, but I think you're onto something. Those I said yes to, regardless of how much they paid me. And so if you want to know how to scale inspiration, the answer is you can't scale inspiration. But if you find people who believe what you believe, they'll scale it with you and for you.
- [33:25]
Guest Speaker
And we were talking about creativity earlier. Do you have any thoughts on how AI will impact creativity?
- [33:30]
Simon Sinek
AI is good at making a shitty first draft. In my world of writing, in your world too, you treat the writer like the hero. And the editors are like, yeah, okay, but now, whether you're in public relations and you're writing press releases or you're a journalist writing an article, I think the power dynamic will flip where the shitty AI can write the shitty first draft. And it's good editors who know how to make a story sing. But when you talk about creativity, AI might spur ideas for somebody creative. But, like, I'm not afraid of AI. Like, if you ask AI to write a book in my voice, it'll write based on what I've already written. But AI has no concept that I'm writing about friendship. And what my take on friendship is going to be. None. Literally zero. I think for creative people, there's no threat at all. I will say the thing that I find ironic about AI and the fear that we have of AI if you go back to the 70s and the 80s, we started to see robots showing up in factories. And without a doubt, a lot of blue collar workers lost their jobs. Because you used to go to a factory filled with people, now it was a factory filled with robots and some people. When the blue collar world said, you're killing us people in finance and CEOs of factories, you know, and the media, to some degree, they looked at them and said, it's the way of the world. You know, find a new skill set. Now. AI threatens knowledge workers. The baggage handler at the airport, not threatened by AI at all. Your plumber doesn't care about the rise of AI at all. Zero. And it's knowledge work that will probably be decimated and have some impact set to it. And I just find it ironic that it's just a balancing. And now it's a different group of people who are going to suffer because of technology, but manual labor and blue collar work will be largely unaffected.
- [35:20]
Guest Speaker
Have you ever asked AI to write something as a prompt to write it in the way of Simon Sinek?
- [35:25]
Simon Sinek
Yeah, of course. I've played with it. Yeah.
- [35:27]
Guest Speaker
Is it good?
- [35:28]
Simon Sinek
It's fine. It just talks about the why a lot. It talks about the work that's most out there, which makes sense. So it's not original. It's accurate, but it's not original.
- [35:40]
Guest Speaker
That's better than a hallucination, I guess. It's not bad.
- [35:43]
Simon Sinek
But, you know, sometimes you might read things or see things or hear things produced by AI that might spur ideas. And I think to some degree, the promises that are being made by AI are not being realized. It's an amazing tool. I think, where it's threatening, I think, like everybody, I'm afraid of how it shows up in the media, how deep fakes show up, how it threatens democracy and communication, and do we really know what's real anymore? That stuff is very, very scary. But a lot of the promises that are being made are not there yet. So I'm very curious where it actually nets out. It'll let out a lot lower altitude than what's being promised. Like most new technologies, we'll see when it happens, we'll find out. And if I'm completely wrong, the robots will have taken over the world and I won't be alive to say I was wrong.
- [36:27]
Guest Speaker
Okay, well, that's from that dark note. Do you ever feel like you can never live down? Start with why?
- [36:34]
Simon Sinek
What do you mean by live down?
- [36:36]
Guest Speaker
Well, people talk about it constantly. I mean, people talk about it with me constantly. Like, I go to an entrepreneurship conference and everyone says, well, I know my why is such and such, and I'm not kidding, Simon. Everybody says this to me. Your, like, initial idea has caught so much fire with so many different people that, like, leaders eat last. The infinite game. I mean, do any of your other ideas. Does it. Does it bother you that the other ideas haven't necessarily, like, caught as much attention?
- [37:06]
Simon Sinek
No, no. The first idea is simple and elegant. I committed my life to treat it like an experiment, and it kept working. And look, I won a lottery to some degree, right? And I'll never create anything as successful. Like people would say, how are you going to do a second TED Talk as successful as the first? The answer is I'm not. How are you going to write another book as successful as the first? I'm like, it's not going to happen. And that bothers me. Zero.
- [37:29]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [37:30]
Simon Sinek
I mean, why wouldn't it? All my work.
- [37:32]
Guest Speaker
Well, to some degree, it's like if the second book wasn't necessarily a hit, or maybe it got like, you know, widely panned, for instance, instead of being critically praised.
- [37:41]
Simon Sinek
Well, it didn't get widely panned, so there's. That's good. Well, I mean, here's the irony. My second book is a New York Times bestseller and start with why isn't. So figure that one out. What's the algorithm on that? So start with why outsells all my other books, and yet it's never been a New York Times bestseller. Where I have three New York Times bestsellers and start with why it's not one of them. So do I give a shit about what's a New York Times best seller or not? Clearly not, because start with why has had more impact in society. People talk about why as a noun, why. You know, the Wall Street Journal will say, or Inc. Magazine will say, clearly this company doesn't know their why and not quote me. And no one, you know, the people writing it may not even know that that's my work. How can I be upset by that? That's amazing. Why would I ever want to live that down? I'm so proud of it.
- [38:27]
Guest Speaker
I remember an entrepreneur recently. It wasn't even recently. It was maybe a couple years ago. He's a technical co founder or a technical leader CEO of a company. And he had a lot of issues with just like interpersonal skills, for instance, had a hard time telling people good job or just generally speaking, just had a hard time socially. When you kind of come across people who just. They want to have a big vision, they want to be really good leader, and they just can't really get there. Do you have any advice for people who kind of like suffer from that?
- [38:59]
Simon Sinek
So there are different personality types, right? There are visionary people who live with their head in the clouds. They're super creative, but they're not the best executors usually. And though they may have ideas that can change the world, if left to their own devices, it's probably not going to work. They have to have people around them to help them. Then you have more operator mentalities who they do understand details a lot better. They are better at back planning and figuring out how to get stuff done. And those people will almost always do better in life because they know how to get stuff done. Now, they may not have that incredible inspiration or change the world or change an industry, but they'll have highly functional, probably decently successful careers. When you can marry those two skills together, which is the visionary with a vision of the world that could have significant impact and somebody who believes in that vision and knows how to build it, it's the partnerships that matter so much. And what the visionary gives the operator is something to believe in, to make their work mean something. And what the operator gives the visionary is the capacity to actually make tangible what lives in someone's imagination. And so I'm more interested in the partnerships and the love that those two people have for each other and the respect that those people have for each other and recognize that I can't do this alone. The biggest insecurity all operators have is they wish they were visionary and creative. The biggest insecurity that visionaries have is they wish they could get stuff done and they wish they were better operators. And so I see it all the time. Stop worrying about what you can't do and find the person who believes in you and loves you and cares about you. Go build it together. The best businesses are 99 times out of 100 partnerships. Walt Disney would not have been able to do it without Roy Disney. Steve Jobs wouldn't be able to do without Steve Wozniak. Martin Luther King wouldn't be able to do it without Ralph Abernathy. Like, show me a great business and I'll show you a great partnership.
- [40:47]
Guest Speaker
You've done a lot of work with the military over the years and you've learned a lot from this work. You know, the leaders eat last was a product of that. Any other lessons from the military and or any other groups that kind of have inspired you along the way?
- [41:00]
Simon Sinek
Military and artists to me are the same human beings. Both of them go into what they're doing knowing that they're not going to get rich doing it. Both of them, for whatever reason they may start doing it, it becomes a calling. Sometimes it starts that way. Sometimes it becomes that thing. Both of them will sacrifice a tremendous amount and Both of them, 100% of their work product is meant for someone else. And so I find a lot of similarities between artists and military. Very, very similar sensibilities. I'M inspired by both. I'm inspired by people who commit lives of service. And in both respects, they're both very deeply human, human beings. I've hugged more people in uniform than people in suits. I've cried with more people in uniform than in suits. I've sat around dinner tables with generals and we literally wept together. And I'll tell you one big, big one. I have a friend who's still active duty. He's a warrior, he's a war hero. He's risked his life to save the lives of others. He's a combat veteran. He's by all accounts a badass. And I remember the first time he called me brother because you and I have colleagues and coworkers, they have brothers and sisters. And those words and those relationships mean something. And I remember the feeling when he called me brother for the first time. And then our friendship flourished and we were catching up not that long ago and, you know, just normal catch up. We'd on the phone for about an hour. Then at the end of the phone call, he said, all right, I'll talk to you later. I love you. Not love ya. Not love you. I love you. Saying those three words is very difficult. Saying love ya is really easy. Even saying love you is easier. I love you, he said to me. And I remember what it felt like, that intense emotion. And I was so struck by it. I started practicing it with some of my friends who were not in the military. I have two friends in particular who I'm thinking of, who, if you met them, you would not describe them as warm. They're great people, but they're not warm. And I remember I was over one of those friends houses and I was saying goodbye and I said, I love you. And I watched him. And he now says it back to me. And the other one, I remember I was getting ready to say goodbye and I said, I love you. And I gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. And he was a little thrown off by it at first. And I kept, you know, the next time I saw him, I said, I love you. And now he hugs me like I'm his son. And so I realized one of the things I learned from them is the humanity. The humanity. And to bring humanity to our friendships, weirdly, they're sometimes not very human. They're cold sometimes. To bring a degree of humanity to work, that it's okay if somebody's having a bad day. Show interest, be curious. They don't have to tell you everything, but just make sure they have a safe space to be imperfect, make sure they have a safe space to get things wrong, to go through stress. You know, these are human experiences, and I have learned that from folks in uniform at a degree that people who have never worn a uniform cannot relate. And every veteran I've ever met, ever, whether they loved the military or whether they hated the military, every single one of them misses the camaraderie, all of them. And to bring some of that to the private sector, you couldn't do it as well because life and death are rarely the stakes. And also, people sign up for different reasons. But to bring at least some of that, it would make companies work a lot better.
- [44:12]
Guest Speaker
Well, Simon, thank you so much for your time today and for this little jolt of inspiration.
- [44:18]
Simon Sinek
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, as always. Good to see you again.
- [44:20]
Guest Speaker
You too.
- [44:22]
Diana Ransome
What Simon says he learned during the pandemic really stuck with me. He learned what friendship was really all about, particularly when he was isolated. He was able to apply that to the entrepreneurial world, too, and it comes out in various ways, from having a difficult conversation with a business partner or coworker to learning how to inspire a team. Yes, it's good to know your boundaries as a manager with your employees, but bring those friendly qualities to the table. Being a good listener, owning up to your faults, and finding solutions to move forward are universally praised. Simon understands that companies are missing some camaraderie in the workforce. Sometimes it's not the productivity tip or revenue numbers that need to be reinforced, but rather a human connection, a simple check in instead.
- [45:12]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
That's all for this episode of from the Ground Up.
- [45:14]
Diana Ransome
Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast platform of choice. Also, if you like this episode or have suggestions of what topics you'd like to hear about, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or reach out to us on Inc's social channels, LinkedIn X or Instagram.
- [45:29]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
From the Ground up is produced by Maryam Kyparowice and Avery Miles. Editing by Blake Odom, Mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres. Our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week. Diana Christine, what is like the worst early career advice that you've ever received?
- [45:51]
Guest Speaker
I actually don't have worst early career advice.
- [45:53]
Simon Sinek
Okay.
- [45:53]
Diana Ransome
Do you have. I have good early career advice. Be willing to do the jobs no one else wants to do. Ooh, you're always going to have opportunity because nobody else wants to do those bad jobs. This is why I am where I am and you do it so well. This is not a bad job.
- [46:12]
Guest Speaker
This is a good job.
- [46:13]
Christine Ligorio Chavkin
From the Ground up, the podcast no one else wanted to do.
- [46:22]
Glenfiddich Ad
Hi listeners. I'm Blake Odom, producer of from the ground Up. Today we have a special segment brought to you by inc. In collaboration with our partners at Glen Fiddick single malt scotch whiskey. This year at the INK 5000 gala, Glen Fiddick presented the inaugural legacy award to Stephen Marsh, founder of smarsh. This award recognizes a trailblazer, an individual who has graced the Inc. 5000 list multiple times, embodying the spirit of innovation, boldness, and a relentless drive to defy the ordinary. Much like Glenn Fiddick, a brand that has pushed the boundaries of excellence throughout its 130 year history to become the world's most awarded single malt scotch whiskey, Stephen Marsh exemplifies the courage and brilliance it takes to redefine industries and elevate the game. Inc. Editor in chief Mike Hoffman spoke with Stephen Marsh about his remarkable journey, the legacy he has built, and the honor of being the first recipient of this award presented by Glenn Fiddick. Here's that captivating conversation. Enjoy and be inspired.
- [47:33]
H
Hi, I'm Mike Hoffman, editor in chief of inc. And I'm delighted to be here today with Steve Marsh, the founder of Smarsh, a multi time Inc. 5000 honoree and the recipient of the inaugural Inc. 5000 Legacy Award presented by Glenn Fiddick. So, Steve, thanks so much for joining me.
- [47:48]
I
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Mike.
- [47:50]
H
Oh yeah, this is great. So let me get this straight. You've been on the Inc. 5000 list 17 times so far?
- [47:56]
I
I think that's correct. I think 17 times.
- [47:58]
H
We double checked it. So you've been on the list 17 times. And how many years has the company been in business?
- [48:03]
I
Since 2001, so about 23, I guess.
- [48:07]
H
So you've been on the list more than you've not been on the list in the 23 years of your corporate life.
- [48:12]
I
I think once we finally made the revenue threshold, we made the list and have been on it since.
- [48:17]
H
Well, congratulations. It's amazing to make the Inc. 5000. It's amazing to make the Inc. 5000 a couple of times and to make it 17 times puts you in really rare error. Only a few companies have made it more than 15 times. Congratulations. Now, you started the company in 2001, is that right?
- [48:32]
I
That's right.
- [48:33]
H
Your name is Steve Marsh and the name of the company is Smarsh. Do I have it right that your original email Address had something to do with the ultimate name of the company.
- [48:40]
I
I incorporated to do consulting work, never thinking that the business name would see the light of day. It was just incorporated as Smarsh Inc. Because Marsh was taken by the large insurance company, so we couldn't use that. My friends at the time that, you know, my coworkers had all called me Smarsh because that was like my email handle. So I said, hey, let's just go with that. The domain name was available and many years later, with a larger marketing department and more resources available to us, more domain names available to us, we still decided to keep the name Smarsh. But that should serve as proof that it never had intention of building this business into anything.
- [49:15]
H
So who was your first client?
- [49:16]
I
My first client was a small brokerage out of Boston, Massachusetts and a friend of mine had worked there and had told me about this need to archive communications for regulatory compliance. And I knew virtually nothing. I mean, I knew absolutely nothing about that. I knew that I needed to make some money to pay rent and that I had some technology skills. So I set out to actually help them implement a solution that I thought I would source from another vendor and quickly found that there weren't other vendors out there doing this, at least to service the small and mid sized companies. The business at that point pivoted from being a consulting business to being the archiving and communications intelligence business that it's become today.
- [49:56]
H
When you started on the hockey stick like trajectory of growth, what was the first moment, if you remember, where you knew, oh, this is not just a consulting business, this is a real business, a technology business, and actually it's a fast growth technology business.
- [50:10]
I
One moment that comes to mind is we had a large competitor in an adjacent space. They weren't archiving the way we were, they did data backup or something and they made an offer to buy the company. Really in our first year of effort in trying to sell the archiving service and it was hard as a founder to turn down. I think it was like a million dollars. But it was complicated but we passed on it. That was a great decision. But that really validated for me that we had built something that was least perceived to be of value to someone else. And of course making the Inc. 5000 list for the first time after applying earlier that year and not being able to apply the year prior to that because we didn't meet the. We weren't big enough, we didn't meet the revenue thresholds. Anyway, when we made that list, that was fantastic validation for all the hard work that we had done, it gave us a sense of credibility when we would go out to our customers. By being able to put the Inc. 5000 recipient logo on our emails and on our website, that actually helped us grow to the next level.
- [51:05]
H
Beyond that, you at some point took growth capital, private equity, is that right?
- [51:09]
I
We did. It wasn't until 2007. First investors were minority investors in 2007. Ironically, the point at which they became interested was a point at which we no longer needed money. I think many founders probably go through this. When you're trying to raise money, it's a lot harder than when you don't need it. When you don't need it, everybody seems to come out of the woodwork, and then they try to convince you why you should take money. I think that was a key moment where we realized we needed to significantly upgrade our technology infrastructure if we wanted to win bigger and bigger customers. We were making incremental changes every year. You know, the rip and replace that you hear technology companies go through, where every six months or so we were taking out old equipment, replacing it with new, bigger, and better equipment. And that really just wasn't scalable. It was becoming a distraction to have to keep going through those projects every six months or so. By raising capital, we were able to get off that hamster wheel, and we were also able to start making some acquisitions became a part of life from that moment forward.
- [52:08]
H
What did you learn about business ownership and business leadership going through the process of acquisitions?
- [52:13]
I
You know, we gained access to people who had operated at the level beyond where we were, which is a pattern, you know, we'll see occur over and over in our business. But there were smarter people who had more experience, a variety of areas, and they presented some of the reasons why we would want to do some acquisitions. They also educated me and the rest of my team on how to do them. But it taught me that there are a variety of ways to help grow the business. You probably don't want to grow your business just doing acquisitions, although that does create value for a lot of companies. But for us, it was a combination of organic growth through innovation and product development and serving our customers with different products and services and making some of these acquisitions to bring in new technology, to bring in additional competitors, to bring in more expertise than we otherwise would possess. And today that that trend continues. You know, we're trying to bring in more AI expertise. For example, we might look to do an acquisition there.
- [53:07]
H
Can I ask, where are you guys at revenue now?
- [53:09]
I
We are about 500 million.
- [53:11]
H
And what's the fastest growth part of the company right now?
- [53:13]
I
There's a lot of focus on leveraging the data that we have stored on behalf of our customers. So if you think about the initial use case for those that, that don't know is that we help customers by storing their electronic communication so that they can meet regulatory requirements. You have to have this stuff, you have to be able to produce it. That's kind of the baseline service. But what we've found is that over the years, you start to amass more and more really valuable information on behalf of our customers. So we have years and years worth of emails, text messages, zoom calls, you know, whatever it may be. In a world where artificial intelligence is taking over and people are trying to find ways to harness the value of data, we're sitting on what we think is one of the biggest goldmines out there in terms of data. It's employee communications that were captured initially for a different reason, but now can be turned into sales opportunities, customer service opportunities, new product ideas. I think we're seeing a lot of growth.
- [54:08]
H
So an archive can become a large language model.
- [54:11]
I
Yeah.
- [54:11]
H
So this is obviously the Inc. 5000 Legacy Award brought to you by Glenn Fiddick. As you think about the legacy of the company and your legacy as a founder, what do you still hope for? What is your idea of what the legacy you want to leave is?
- [54:24]
I
We have a very unique culture, I think one that reflects what I wanted to create many, many years ago. I want it to be an organization that hopefully my kids one day look back on and say, wow, dad must have built something pretty interesting here. It's still around, it's still relevant. Our customers still find value in what we're doing. I just want to see it reach its maximum potential. Not every company, even, you know, not every company that is started or that I'm involved in or that I invest in has the same opportunity to persist through time. Some companies are better as a short term product that maybe gets sold to someone else and they integrate the technologies. Some technologies have a shorter lifespan where maybe it's two to three years and then you have to move on. This is a business that I believe truly has the opportunity to exist for many, many years and to be relevant by just listening to customers and adapting and finding or addressing use cases that we found many years ago.
- [55:16]
H
Steve Marsh, the founder of Smarsh, a half billion dollar company founded in a Brooklyn apartment that's been on the Inc. 5000 list 17 times. Thanks so much for joining us. Today.
- [55:26]
I
Thanks for having me.
- [55:27]
H
Before I let you go, we have these glasses of Glenn Fiddick here. You are the inaugural recipient of the Inc. 5000 Legacy Award, presented by Glenn Fiddick. So let's cheers to your success.
- [55:37]
Simon Sinek
Cheers.
- [55:39]
Glenfiddich Ad
Congratulations again to Stephen Marsh. And I couldn't end this episode without getting a little taste of Glenfiddich myself. And since I got a bottle right here. Cheers to you listeners with Glenfiddich, the world's most awarded single malt Scotch whiskey. Drink responsibly. Glenfiddich single malt Scotch Whiskey is copyrighted 2024 and imported by William Grant and Sons, Inc. New York, New York.