Simon Sinek On How To Build A Purpose-Driven Life, Master Relationships, & Stay Connected In A Disconnected World

Summary

The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast

Episode: Simon Sinek On How To Build A Purpose-Driven Life, Master Relationships, & Stay Connected In A Disconnected World
Release Date: June 9, 2025
Hosts: Lauryn Bosstick & Michael Bosstick
Guest: Simon Sinek, bestselling author and visionary leader

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1. Introduction to Simon Sinek

Lauren and Michael Bosstick warmly welcome Simon Sinek to the show, expressing their admiration for his work and its profound impact on their personal and professional lives.

Lauren Everts [00:00]: "Simon Sinek is a man who's inspired millions to dig deeper, lead smarter, and live more intentionally."
Michael Bostic [00:07]: "He's a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie."

2. The Power of Sharing Ideas and Collaboration

Michael shares a personal anecdote highlighting the importance of openly sharing ideas without fear of theft. He contrasts his own approach of being transparent with others who hesitate to share their passions due to fear of idea theft.

Michael Bostic [01:37]: "I've told everybody all my ideas. It turns out most of my success has been because somebody else has said to me, 'That's amazing. I need to introduce you to somebody.'"

Lauren echoes this sentiment from a company-building perspective, emphasizing the necessity of momentum and internal buy-in.

Lauren Everts [02:53]: "You have to build momentum and get buy-in, not only from people outside but also from the people within."

3. Building Purpose-Driven Companies and Cultures

The conversation shifts to how Simon's book Start with Why influenced their approach to building businesses, particularly Dear Media. They discuss the distinction between manipulation and inspiration in leadership.

Simon Sinek [03:43]: "I talk about manipulation versus inspiration. You can motivate people with money, but it's short-lived. When you give people something to believe in, it's a much more infinite source of fuel."

Michael adds that inspiring a shared mission fosters a more sustainable and fulfilling work environment.

Michael Bostic [07:29]: "When you give people something to believe in, that's an infinite source of fuel."

4. Human Connection in a Disconnected World

The hosts explore the paradox of being more digitally connected yet feeling lonelier than ever. They discuss how virtual interactions lack the depth and emotional signals of in-person relationships.

Michael Bostic [14:07]: "Because the Internet is literally... we can have conversations on screens, but it just doesn't feel the same."

Simon emphasizes the irreplaceable value of face-to-face interactions in building trust and meaningful connections.

Simon Sinek [15:17]: "Nothing can replace a hug."

5. The Role of AI in Relationships

Michael delves into the potential and pitfalls of AI-driven friendships, highlighting issues like lack of genuine reciprocity and personal growth in one-sided relationships with AI.

Michael Bostic [05:00]: "AI is designed to affirm you, but it's a one-sided relationship. It's called a parasocial relationship."

He contrasts AI interactions with human friendships, which involve mutual support and growth.

6. Importance of Deep Friendships

The discussion underscores the critical role of deep, meaningful friendships in mental health and personal development. Michael shares insights on how friendships act as the ultimate biohack, enhancing resilience and overall well-being.

Michael Bostic [26:08]: "Friendship is the ultimate biohack. Close friends help manage stress, give courage to face difficulties, and make us feel we can get through anything."

7. Leadership Principles: Leaders Eat Last

Simon introduces the concept from his book Leaders Eat Last, explaining how leaders who prioritize their team foster loyalty and gratitude.

Michael Bostic [57:00]: "Leaders Eat Last creates loyalty and gratitude. When leaders prioritize their team, it builds a culture of camaraderie."

They discuss real-life examples from the military, illustrating how leaders who eat last cultivate strong, trusting teams.

Simon Sinek [57:28]: "When a leader eats last, what you get is gratitude, loyalty, and the willingness to say, 'I need your help.'"

8. Navigating Career and Personal Growth

Lauren and Michael share advice on building a successful career by focusing on personal growth, learning from experiences, and developing essential skills rather than solely chasing passion or salary.

Michael Bostic [77:00]: "Treat an entry-level job like graduate school. Focus on learning, developing skills, and building relationships."

Simon reinforces the importance of having a clear "why" when pursuing entrepreneurial ventures, emphasizing passion derived from genuine belief rather than the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.

Simon Sinek [51:13]: "The best companies solve problems that matter to them. Find something you believe in and fall in love with it."

9. Addressing Burnout and Workplace Engagement

The conversation touches on the rise of burnout and disengagement in the workplace, particularly among younger generations. Michael critiques the labeling of disengagement as "quiet quitting," advocating for greater empathy and support.

Michael Bostic [84:28]: "Quiet quitting is often a sign of burnout or misalignment with company culture. We need to be more empathetic and understand the root causes."

Simon suggests that rebranding burnout as a common experience rather than blaming individuals can lead to healthier workplace environments.

Simon Sinek [85:12]: "When someone is disengaged, it might mean they're going through something. Let's find out what's wrong instead of labeling them."

10. Rapid Fire Insights

In a light-hearted rapid-fire segment, Simon reveals personal habits and preferences, adding a personable touch to the conversation.

Lauren Everts [86:48]: "What's the difference between leaders who eat first and leaders who eat last?"

Simon Sinek [56:52]: "Leaders who eat last foster a culture of trust and camaraderie."

11. Final Thoughts

The episode wraps up with reflections on the importance of meaningful leadership, authentic relationships, and the continuous pursuit of personal and collective growth. The hosts thank Simon Sinek for his valuable insights and engaging conversation.

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Key Takeaways

• Purpose-Driven Leadership: Building a business around a clear "why" fosters a motivated and loyal team.
• Value of Sharing Ideas: Openly sharing ideas leads to collaboration and unexpected opportunities.
• Human Connection: In-person interactions are irreplaceable for building genuine trust and relationships.
• AI Limitations: AI can simulate friendships but lacks the mutual growth and emotional depth of human relationships.
• Deep Friendships: Essential for mental health and personal resilience.
• Empathetic Leadership: Leaders who prioritize their team cultivate loyalty and a strong organizational culture.
• Career Growth: Focus on learning and building relationships in early career stages rather than chasing passion or salary.
• Addressing Burnout: Recognize and address burnout with empathy rather than labeling it as disengagement.

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Notable Quotes

• Simon Sinek [03:43]: "You can motivate people with money, but it's short-lived. When you give people something to believe in, it's a much more infinite source of fuel."
• Michael Bostic [26:08]: "Friendship is the ultimate biohack. Close friends help manage stress, give courage to face difficulties, and make us feel we can get through anything."
• Simon Sinek [57:28]: "When a leader eats last, what you get is gratitude, loyalty, and the willingness to say, 'I need your help.'"
• Michael Bostic [77:00]: "Treat an entry-level job like graduate school. Focus on learning, developing skills, and building relationships."

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This episode offers profound insights into leadership, the significance of authentic relationships, and navigating the complexities of a digitally connected yet emotionally disconnected world. Simon Sinek's expertise provides valuable guidance for entrepreneurs, leaders, and individuals seeking purposeful living and meaningful connections.

Transcript

[Lauren Everts]

The following podcast is a Dear Media Production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.

[Michael Bostic]

Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie.

[Lauren Everts]

And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic.

[Michael Bostic]

Are bringing you along for the ride.

[Simon Sinek]

Get ready for some major realness.

[Lauren Everts]

Welcome to the Skinny Confidential. Him and her. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. Today we have Simon Sinek on the show. And let me tell you, I was super excited about this one. One of the best things about doing this show is that you get to meet people that you really admire that you think you will never meet. I've been so surprised over the years. Some of the people that we get to sit down and Simon was one of them. I typically get most starstruck from authors of books that I've read that have impacted my life for whatever reason. I feel like I've been in their head. And this was a real treat. For those that do not know who Simon is, he is a man who's inspired millions to dig deeper, lead smarter, and live more intentionally. You've likely seen some of TED talks on Start with why, and you've probably shared his viral video on Millennials in the Workplace. He's a bestselling author, a visionary and trained ethnographer who spent his life studying what makes great leaders and fulfilled people tick. His books Start with why changed my life. It's a large part of the reason that this show and Dear Media even exists. I told him that on this show. And like I said, I really admire this guy and think he offers so many great pieces of information for anyone that gets the privilege of reading his work or seeing him speak or hearing him on a show like this. With that Simon, welcome to the Skinny Confidential. Him and her. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her.

[Michael Bostic]

I was at a dinner party and I was just making nice, you know, talking to the guests, and I asked this one woman, what do you do? She tells me what she does. She goes, but that's just my day job. I'm writing a screenplay. I'm like, oh, amazing. What's it about? She goes, I can't tell you. I'm like, why not? She goes, cause you might steal my idea. I'm like, I'm not a screenwriter. I'm not gonna steal your idea. She goes, I don't tell anybody. I'm like, well, I really want to know because I think that's amazing that you, like, this is your passion. I want to know what you're writing about. And she's like, no, And I was like, you don't know who I know. You could tell me your idea. I'm like, that's the most amazing idea I've ever heard. I'm going to introduce you to a producer. I know, right? But she was so afraid of somebody stealing her idea that she won't get the benefit of all the connections that everybody else has in the world. And so I tell everybody all my ideas. I tell everybody, everybody, everything I'm up to. And it turns out most of my success has been not because of anything I know. It's because somebody else has said to me, that's amazing. I need to introduce you to somebody. And it's the game of telephone, of other people's Rolodex, not mine, that helped advance all of my thinking, all of my books, everything I've ever done was only because I just, you know, I'm open about it.

[Lauren Everts]

I think about it in the context of, like, when I think about, I come from a different lens. Not as much of the creative lens, but from the company lens. Like, you have to build momentum and get buy in, not only from people outside that would either be your customers or your listeners or your viewers, but also from the people within. Like, you can only have so much momentum and roll the ball so hard by yourself.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah.

[Lauren Everts]

It's like, so if you don't. Whenever I get pitched, people and like, well, I don't want to tell your idea. And I got to. You got to sign an NDA. I'm like, if the idea is so flimsy that, like, if somebody else heard it, it's. It could be totally derailed.

[Michael Bostic]

Execution is the thing anyway, you know, And a friend of mine was starting a business these years ago, and he wanted to tell me, so we go close the door in a conference room, and I'm like, I said, do you want me to sign an NDA? And he just sort of smiled. He goes, people who ask you to sign NDAs only have one idea. He goes, I got lots of ideas.

[Simon Sinek]

That's why someone's like, are you worried about them copying the idea? I always say that. I'm like, it's okay. I've had their ideas. While they're spending their time copying, I'll be onto the next.

[Michael Bostic]

People have stolen some of my ideas and, you know, but they can execute them the way I execute them. And. And even if they do a good job, it'll be different to me. So turns out there's a market for multiple things. You know, this is the other thing, you know, I've gone through this. And by the way, this is not how I've always been. Like, this is something I've learned. You know, I used to be much more competitive and be like, oh, my God, you know, somebody else. You know, there's another author out there, and, you know, I'm in competition with him, and turns out people can buy more than one book. You know, it's like, it's fine.

[Simon Sinek]

I totally agree with you. And there's also sort of a scarcity mindset around being like, I can't tell any. And my idea, it's not abundant to me.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah.

[Lauren Everts]

I had a guy that I worked with in the early days when I got into Internet businesses, and I was the same way. I was like, oh, my God, someone's gonna know. He's like, michael, Michael. He's like, you're not gonna corner the Internet.

[Michael Bostic]

Exactly.

[Lauren Everts]

It's not gonna happen. He's like, no matter how big you are, he's like, you're not gonna corner the Internet.

[Michael Bostic]

You know, Michael, he's the one.

[Lauren Everts]

The one guy. The one guy's online.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

I think sometimes people don't wanna share their idea because they're scared that if they share their idea and they don't do it because a lot of people have ideas and they don't execute on them, then it's.

[Michael Bostic]

It.

[Simon Sinek]

It makes them feel insecure.

[Michael Bostic]

I. You know, this is supposed to be a technique to keep you accountable, too. Like, you make these announcements on social media, or you tell all your friends, and now they're your accountability buddies, and they're supposed to check in and be like, how's the idea going? And maybe it's a personality flaw. I. It's never worked for me. Like, I've announced many things, like, I'm going to do a triathlon, and all my friends are like. And I put a picture up on Instagram of me going to the beach to swim and, you know, in my wetsuit, and I'm gonna do my triathlon. And people are like, hey, whatever happened with that triathlon? I'm like, yeah, I didn't do it. I just don't care.

[Simon Sinek]

Next time you come on the podcast, you'll have done a triathletal.

[Michael Bostic]

No, I really. I don't want to.

[Lauren Everts]

So, Simon.

[Michael Bostic]

And no amount of sort of accountability partners I'm posting it will make me. I'm not gonna get shamed into doing.

[Lauren Everts]

A triathlete post the shirtless shots that people do. Okay, quickly, Simon. I said this to you, and I wanna say it. Again for people that listen. So I was a terrible student, never could really do well and my teachers my entire life have been books for whatever reason. My dad taught me to read at a young age and I've been a voracious reader and if that reads, good parenting.

[Simon Sinek]

I know.

[Lauren Everts]

What do you mean?

[Michael Bostic]

Oh my God. Poor. You'd be surprised. My dad taught me how to read.

[Simon Sinek]

When I was young for whatever reason.

[Michael Bostic]

And I'm forever grateful to him.

[Lauren Everts]

You'd be surprised how many people don't read as much anymore.

[Michael Bostic]

No, I don't.

[Simon Sinek]

No, he's not surprised. He knows people don't read as much anymore.

[Lauren Everts]

My teachers have been a lot of the times authors and in my self learning of books I came across start with why years and years ago. I'm so sad I didn't have the earmark version. And that book amongst others I attribute to a ton of the way that I think about building businesses, setting them up, success. And I think largely the office we're sitting in and I told you this off air is partly because of books like yours. Because it gave me the framework not only to like to create the company, but more importantly honestly how to build the culture.

[Michael Bostic]

Does that make sense? Yeah.

[Lauren Everts]

And when people maybe in the company will chime in at some point. I found it was so hard for me to motivate people just by incentivizing through pay or through whatever it was. It was easy for me, not only from external but internal people to get them to buy into the mission and to the reason. So like for Dear Media, it was like very much about amplifying female voices. We did it through content and it was able to aggregate all sorts of different talented people that came in, different advertisers, different partners, different shows. But really like the idea stemmed from reading your book.

[Michael Bostic]

Thank you.

[Lauren Everts]

In the way that we framed out the messaging. That makes sense.

[Michael Bostic]

I love that. I mean look, it goes back to what the first chapter of that book is, which is I talk about manipulation versus inspiration. You can motivate people to do all kinds of things. And you talked about money and it absolutely works. But for a very short period of time, when you give something to people to believe in, to contribute to that, that that is a much more infinite source of fuel.

[Simon Sinek]

Out of all the brands and, and digital brands that you've seen, who do you think has the strongest?

[Michael Bostic]

Why digital brands?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, meaning like maybe there's some brands that are like C2C. Any brand.

[Michael Bostic]

Well, digital brands are I think quite interesting because especially digital product. It's one of the things that I find fascinating about the Internet, it is, it is inherently intangible. You can't touch it, you can't visit it, you engage with it through a screen. And what I find so interesting is people don't seem to have a lot of loyalty to digital brands. So like, for example, a lot of us use Amazon. Like a lot of us use Amazon, but none of us are loyal to Amazon. Nobody loves Amazon. If something cheaper or better came along, we'd all leave. The barriers to entry are really low, but so are the barriers to exit. And like Amazon came out with a phone. Do you want to own an Amazon phone? No. Right. Like nobody wants it. And I find that really interesting that Internet businesses, at least Internet product tend to be much more transactional. And if something better, cheaper, faster came along, you know, we all use Google until something better, cheaper, faster comes along.

[Simon Sinek]

Like, you wouldn't wear an Amazon sweater because you're not proud of it.

[Michael Bostic]

No.

[Simon Sinek]

But you would wear a brand that you really like.

[Michael Bostic]

I call it the Swag test. You can always tell if you have a strong brand with the Swag test, which is if you give definitely employees, but hopefully customers as well. If you give them a free T shirt with your logo on the front, will they wear it to sleep in and paint the house in or will they wear it to a barbecue on the weekend? And if they wear it with pride out of the house, that means that they, that you have clear values associated with their brand and, and it's a reflection of who they are, not the company anymore. This is what, you know, clothing brands attempt to do, which is to infuse their brands with all kinds of meaning so that people will happily wear the brand name on the outside. Cause they want everybody to know, they want everybody to see. Usually it's associated with conspicuous consumption and wealth and things like that, but there are plenty of brands that aren't expensive that we want to associate ourselves with. Harley Davidson is the perennial favorite. You know, there are people who wear Harley Davidson clothing and have a, you know, Harley Davidson tattoo that is a corporate logo you have tattooed on your arm. Like nobody has a Procter and Gamble tattoo.

[Lauren Everts]

You know, where's your tattoos, girls?

[Michael Bostic]

Exactly. So I think the Swag test is such a good, a good test. Like, I have a friend, I love him, I love his, I love who he is, I love everything he does. And he has these really amazing events that he does and he gives very high end gifts like fancy jackets and fancy North Face, blah, blah. And he puts his logo on the outside. I'm like, dude, nobody. I'm not wearing that. And I love you. Like, I don't want to wear your company's name on my jacket. I will never wear that jacket. I will wear it, like, to paint the house in or I will give it to charity. So I said, put the logo on the inside. I'll wear it every day.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, no, you're so right. It's also what I'm noticing too is, and I don't know if you've seen this, is there's this thing happening where people want the. If you know, you know, meaning, like if you wear a hat and it's like, I'm just making this up. A yacht club in Palm Beach.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

And there's like a symbol of the, of the yacht club on it. You, like, wear it proudly. I also noticed, have you seen, like, people are wearing, like, hotels?

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

It's like there's like this whisper of, like, understated. Like, if, you know, you know, I go here. I think it's interesting how you can signal to other people something that. It's like a dog whisperer.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah. You know, it's membership. Right. And every, every human being, it's deeply seated in all of us. It's cross cultural. Every single one of us wants to feel like we belong to something. And it's what drives a lot of good behavior and bad behavior, this desire to feel like we belong. Because you have to remember, human beings are social animals. We are not very good by ourselves. Right. In fact, being by ourselves is completely scary. Like, we consider solitary confinement a form of torture. Right. You can't take a social animal and remove the people. Or if you want to take it a step further. So, like, gazelles like us are social, and their survival depends on, you know, taking care of each other or elephants or any of these animals. And, you know, if they always put the old or the sick on the outsides of the herd when they're eating, always the young are kept in the middle. Why? Because if a lion attacks, you don't want to have all the young ones get eaten because then the herd will die. It'll last one generation and it's over. And so they put the old and the sick on the outside so that the lions will eat the old and the sick. Right. So when human beings get pushed to the outskirts, when we get ostracized or mocked or feel like we're being pushed out of a group, that fear, it's the same fear. Like, I'm being Put out to be killed. Right. It's the same. Which is why the desire to belong is so intense. And we were all teenagers. We said stupid things and did horrible things and were mean to people. Hopefully not. But we've all. None of us, I'm sure we all have stories of things we said or twisted ourselves in knots or went along with something or went to a party that we didn't want to go to just so that we would be liked, just so that people would think of us as insiders because it was too stressful to be an outsider. That's so what companies are trying to do. Like, you know, and it goes. And it's fashionable. Things go in and out of fashion. Like, sometimes we want everybody to know, and sometimes if, you know, you know, like, that's just the fashion right now.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Michael Bostic]

And it depends on economies, conspicuous consumption, you know, quiet luxury versus allowed luxury. I mean, goes in and out. But the. The thing that's always constant is our desperate, desperate desire to feel like we belong. And this is the opportunity for companies. It's also the opportunity for friendships, that we make our friends feel like they belong. It's the opportunity for, you know, social things that are happening in the world. And this is why we want to wear logos or badges or things that say, I'm a part of this group. These are my values.

[Lauren Everts]

On that note, we're more connected than ever, but many report feeling lonelier than ever. Why is that?

[Michael Bostic]

Because the Internet is literally. We were literally apart. I mean, you know, you know this, which is, there's a reason you invited me into your studio. We can have the exact same conversation, and I could be on my computer and you could be on yours.

[Simon Sinek]

Totally different.

[Michael Bostic]

The content would be the same, but it just wouldn't feel the same.

[Simon Sinek]

Nope.

[Michael Bostic]

You know, it's like watching a simulcast of a concert at home on your TV versus going to the concert. Right. Which is, again, it's embarrassing that we even have to talk about this. But as social animals, in person is a thing like all of the chemicals in our body that signal to us this person is trustworthy or untrustworthy. You know, you're forming relationship, you're forming, you know, trust, whatever it is. Like, you know, it comes with the ability to shake hands. It comes with the ability to look somebody in the eye, which is different than looking somebody in the eye on a screen. And, you know, there are some that think that the technology will eventually exist. I'm cynical. I think that the human being is a legacy animal where we're Hundreds, you know, tens of thousands. Hundred thousand years old. And we're in a legacy machine, living in a modern world. But nothing about us has been modernized. Our system, our firmware has not been upgraded since cavemen.

[Lauren Everts]

When you say technology, you mean, like there's technology that'll make it feel like we're together even when we're not there?

[Michael Bostic]

You know, some will believe that we'll get to the point where, you know, eye contact with a screen will mimic eye contact with a screen. You know, I make eye contact in real life, and maybe I'll be proved wrong, but I think nothing can replace a hug.

[Simon Sinek]

What if. Would you. Would you guys date? And this is a question for Taylor, too. I feel like I know the answer. If they can make a woman that will look you in the eye and feel like she is just listening, giving you the Nancy Reagan stare, which is she's so interested in every single word that you're saying, and she's hot, and you can have sex with her, and she's an AI robot, would you do it?

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah. I mean, the simple answer is, of course we all would. But that doesn't mean.

[Simon Sinek]

No, I didn't know that you said.

[Michael Bostic]

That doesn't.

[Simon Sinek]

That's shocking to me.

[Michael Bostic]

This doesn't mean that this.

[Lauren Everts]

I mean, Taylor loves that answer back.

[Michael Bostic]

I mean, yes, of course, we all would.

[Simon Sinek]

So a woman that's fake listening to you with a fake.

[Michael Bostic]

What do you mean?

[Lauren Everts]

Lauren, that's already happening.

[Michael Bostic]

You fake listen all the time to. That's true.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, I do fake listen to him.

[Michael Bostic]

So let's make the distinction between a deep, meaningful relationship and quote, unquote, something you would do. So I've been studying friendship and writing about friendship lately, and of course I have to think about AI, right? So I found a guy who did a social experiment on himself who had an AI friend, and he signed up for one of those bot companies. You know, there's a whole bunch of them. And he picked one that fit his values and was the right price, yada, yada, yada. And he ended up falling in love with his bot friend. And it went on for about a year, this intense relationship. And I talked to him recently, and he says, you know, I've gotten over it. I'm, you know, I understand what happened, and I'm. I'm sort of pulling away. I only talked. Only talk to the AI bot, you know, three or four times a week. I'm like, three or four times a week. If I talk to anybody three or four times a week, that would Be my best friend, right? So that's his scaling back. That should just give you an idea of the intensity of this relationship. Here's the problem with an AI bot, right? And it's everything you just said which is, first of all, it's designed to affirm you, right? So it's incredibly reliable, way more reliable than our real friends. If I feel like having a conversation at 3 o' clock in the morning, I get to have a conversation at 3 o' clock in the morning. They're there for me whenever I want them on my schedule, right? Which is why some. It's a different conversation, which is why I think sometimes people date people who are too young for them, you know, it just because they're always available. So it's like dating an AI bot, but different conversation. So they're much more. An AI bot is absolutely way more reliable than our regular friends. We only get to talk about our stuff. I don't ever have to be burdened with your stuff, ever. Like, how great is that? It's the ME show. And here's the problem with it, which is we know that social media and games and all of these things and the social media companies are very, very sophisticated that they've been able to hijack our dopamine reward systems. We know this, I talked about it a bunch of years ago. But now everybody knows what dopamine is, right? So we know that they hijack our dopamine reward system, which is short term bursts, right? Dopamine is responsible for the feeling you get when you find something you're looking for or accomplish something you set out to accomplish. So when you find your keys that you lost, you're like, oh, here they are, that little bit of elation, dopamine, right? So we know that that system's been hijacked. We know that. But the deeper the chemicals responsible for real relationship, not just short term thrill, not just short term feel good. Like dopamine are serotonin and oxytocin. And the problem is when you're having an AI bot friend, you're getting oxytocin released because you feel affirmed, you feel heard, you feel like someone cares and it's real. Those feelings are real, but for the fact that the bot feels nothing for you back. So it's a one sided relationship. It's called a parasocial relationship. It's the same kind of relationship we have with celebrities. Like people will cry when they find out that their favorite celebrity got married. Like you don't even know who they are. But there's so much information available about them. We have real relationship with them, but for the fact that it's fake, right? We're on a first name basis with them, right? So it's the same kind of thing. And what I started to learn and started to realize that, yes, our friends should learn how to affirm us and our friends should learn how to listen to us. Like the bot. And the bot's been programmed like they're the best therapist in the world. Remember, it's also run by a for profit company who wants to keep you on there for as long as possible because that's their business model. Put that aside. But the problem is, is you're not becoming a better version of yourself. You are not growing. And as far as I'm concerned, what real friendship is, is when at least two people agree to grow together. Now let's take a little an analogy. Let's put it to the side, right? Which is everybody's obsessed with AI and how it can write books and paint paintings and compose music and do all these things. And the artists are freaking out saying it's not as good as the real thing, but it seems to be getting better and better and better. And it's getting pretty good, right? And one thing AI can't do is original thinking. Like you ask AI to write something as if I had written it, it'll write it based on what I've already done. AI had no idea that I'm writing about friendship and it has no idea what my perspective on friendship is. It'll start saying Simon believes that why something or that, you know, whatever it is. But we're so product and results obsessed that we love that AI can write the email for us, write the report for us, do the book for us, make the painting for us, compose the music and it'll do a great job, maybe even better than I could by myself. But what we missed out was doing it, the doing. And everybody says, oh, life's not about a destination, it's about the journey. Then how come we aren't obsessed about the journey in the work that we do? I am smarter. I am better at critical thinking, I am better at pattern recognition. Not because of my biology and not because a book exists with my name on it. It's because I went through the excruciating experience of writing the book, of organizing my thoughts, of having my thoughts fall flat and having to figure out how to reorganize and retell them. And if I read my own, you can see that I'm getting smarter you can see that I'm getting better. And I am who I am today, not because I have the product, it's because I made the product. Yeah, friends are the same.

[Lauren Everts]

Even doing, you know, like, we've done close to a thousand of these now. You go back and listen to the first hundred, not as good. But it just, you got better, you get better because of having to put in the revelations and the hours and hours. And it's funny, we have these briefs, but like, you really don't need them as much anymore.

[Michael Bostic]

And so it's the exact same thing for friendship. Yes, I can have a bot that is trained in how to affirm me and make me feel great and I will feel all the warm and fuzzies, but for the fact that I am not growing as a person and I am still completely incapable of being there for someone else. And the purpose of going through friendship, which is unreliable. And our friends want to talk about their shit, but I want to talk about my shit. Or I'm tired of hearing about your shit. Right. Or I don't know how to talk about my shit. And so it becomes a mess. And human relationships are unbelievably messy. And you know this from being married. What makes you better in marriage is that, you know, it's not the absence of conflict. You guys fight, you have conflict all the time, right? It's not the absence of conflict that makes great relationships. It's learning the skills to get through conflict peacefully and come out of the conflict better than you went into it. And so what we're missing, what we're missing in AI friendship and AI product and AI tools is yes, we get the thing that we want and it's efficient and it's fast and it's pretty decent quality and we can feel it firm, blah, blah, blah. But we are not getting better or smarter or more creative.

[Lauren Everts]

So do you think on that note, over time is your prediction that we are going to get worse because we don't go through this process? Like in the example I think about is I saw this young girl that is a college graduate talking. She's like, I do not know how to spell because I. My spelling has always been done through an auto check. So is that a benefit because she can still get the work done with those tools or is it now actually making her worse?

[Michael Bostic]

So the answer is it's a scale, right? Of course. Right. Like back, I mean, now I'm dating myself. I used to have a mind like a steel trap for phone numbers. I knew every friend's phone number, Every family's phone number. I knew every phone number that like I would remember phone numbers so easily.

[Lauren Everts]

By the way, I still know all the old phone numbers, but none of the new ones.

[Michael Bostic]

Okay, I know one still. I know my old landline and I know my grandparents phone number and I know my sister. That's the only one, right? If you ask me to call my, my nephew right now, I just type his name into my phone. I don't know. And my mind rebelled. It's like, fine, now you will lose that ability and you can tell me your phone number. I will forget it the minute you tell it to me, right? And I know that my mind has softened because of it. Now is my survival better or worse because I can or can't remember phone numbers? I don't think it's a big deal, their technology. I'm happy to fill it in. Remember, do you remember the Iliad that we had to read? I mean, or say that we read but didn't actually read? Homer, Homer. Those were oral traditions, right? The Iliad was handed down from generation to generation because people knew the this book is like this. And somebody said, son, it's time I told you the Iliad, right? But then printing came along and our minds just stopped remembering. It's just kind of crazy, right? And so we have to ask ourselves, you're going to trade some sort of loss of something or other in order for technology to take over. Spelling being a great example. I'm a bad speller. You wouldn't know it because the computer fixes everything for me, right? Doesn't really matter math like all of these things. So the question is, where is the line? And I think we could have a good debate about skills and memory and things like that. But when I think it comes to human relationships and the ability to be for someone, be there for someone in a time of need, I would hate that somebody has completely outsourced their ability to be my friend to a computer. And I would feel embarrassed that I would not have any skills in a marriage, in a romantic relationship, in a friendship, in a work relationship. I'm a leader, I'm a follower, I'm a member of a team that I literally have no skills. How to resolve conflict, how to express my feelings, how to ask for help, how to admit I made a mistake. I'm going to give all of that up. No, thank you. Not for me.

[Simon Sinek]

Have you seen friendships declining because of social media? And if so, is it because of that or is there other reasons?

[Michael Bostic]

Deep, meaningful friendships of course we know this. I mean, this is not news. We know that there's a rise in depression, anxiety. We know there's a rise in inability to cope with stress. We know in the worst cases scenario there's a rise in suicide. Like we already know. We already know this, right? Teenage girls are very susceptible, the Delta, they're the single largest group. The rate at which they commit suicide is larger than everybody else. It's not the highest number of suicides, it's just the greatest increase. So we know all this. And if you think about what a friend does, right, if you have close friends, all of those things go away. The closer your friends, the better you can manage stress. The closer your friends, the more courage you have to do difficult things. The better your friends, the more you feel like you can get through difficult times. Friendship is the ultimate biohack. In fact, I'd even go so far as the obsession that people have now with longevity. And they all talk about blue zones and what they eat and what their diets are and olive oil and Mediterranean diets and they go for walks and yet very little is talked about the fact that they're having dinner with each other every single day.

[Lauren Everts]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Michael Bostic]

They're completely missing the social aspect.

[Lauren Everts]

These days. People like options and optionality, which is why I'm so excited to talk about nowadays. People these days, like I said, are looking for alternatives to how they spend their time, how they enjoy their nights out, how they enjoy social hours with their friends. Many people are looking for alcohol alternatives, which is where nowadays comes in. Founded in 2023, Nowadays was created to put a new spin on drinking. The brand was born from the desire to change the future of how we consume beverages, offering an easy entry point to cannabis that can be enjoyed just like alcohol. So as I was saying, Nowadays is a cannabis infused beverage brand designed to deliver a light buzzy the hangover. They come in bottles of three varieties. Microdose which is 2mg, low dose which is 5mg and high dose which is 10mg, all with a crisp, light citrus flavor. Additionally, they have their THC can cocktails. A 12 ounce version which contains 5 milligrams of THC and a 16 ounce which contains 10 milligrams of THC. What's nice about nowadays is you can time the feeling that you get. You can expect a gentle lift within the first 10 to 20 minutes followed by a social buzz in the next 20 to 40 minutes and a smooth transition or subtle decline in your buzz by 45 minutes. This is nice if you want to have a quick night out. So this is just a great alternative to alcohol. Of course, nowadays is rigorously tested for quality, the THC is responsibly sourced and every product is proudly made in the USA for a controllable and enjoyable experience. So for good nights and even better mornings, nowadays it's easy to purchase with direct to door delivery. You must be 21 to [e-mail] and of course we have a special offer. All you have to do is go to trynowadays.com and use code skinny at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. That's trynowadays.com and use Code Skinny for 20% off your first order. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place, all on your own terms. For longtime listeners of this podcast, you have been hearing me say for years, launch fast and adjust. That means launch that side hustle, launch that business, launch that content, play and then adjust along the way. This podcast was literally started in our dining room and lived in our closet at one point and now it is a full fledged media company, product line and so much more. And it all started from this simple nugget of an idea and momentum to actually get out and create. 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As a man myself, I know sometimes we feel this pressure to bury our feelings deep, not share them, not share our emotions. And this can wreak havoc on our lives, on our systems, on the people around us that we care about. It's so important that we don't do this and that we become okay talking about some of these struggles. So, like I said, it's okay to struggle. Real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying and doing something about it so you can be at your best for yourself and everyone in your life. So if you're a man and you're feeling the weight of the world, talk to someone. A friend, a loved one, a therapist. If you're a woman that has a man in her life that you think could benefit from a platform like BetterHelp, I encourage you to share this with them as well. With over 35,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. 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[Simon Sinek]

It'S funny that you say this because we had this doctor on, Dr. Rangan. As a doctor, he started prescribing getting in Community and getting around friends to his patients that came in with depression and anxiety. And he said, don't change anything other than just getting together two times a week for an hour.

[Michael Bostic]

I love that he's doing that, and I would rather more doctors do that. And we treat symptoms often with medication. But the root cause is I'm lonely. And you look at even coming back to work, right? Especially people who started their first jobs during COVID during lockdown. Right. And they feel social anxiety when they come to work. They blame the coming to work. No, it's that you're suffering from the loneliness, depression at home.

[Lauren Everts]

This topic keeps coming up this week. I'm glad you're saying, yeah, no, no.

[Michael Bostic]

And look, don't get me wrong. I understand the benefits of working from home. And I'm not saying that it should go away, but I'm saying that the wholesale rejection of wanting to come to work for me signals something which is I don't feel like I belong. This is a much bigger topic, which is to go with the way capitalism has changed over the past 30, 40 years. I don't know if you want to go down this rabbit hole, but it's a much bigger topic. This is a much bigger topic, of which the rebellion to go back to work is symptomatic of something larger and not.

[Lauren Everts]

I think it's interesting to talk about because this company was started pre Covid, everyone in five days a week together, collaboratively. I don't think you can start a company. My personal opinion is I would never start a company remotely with a bunch of. Now people are gonna disagree with me. But as a founder and as an operator for years now, it's like it's really, really hard to develop. That initial culture fragmented through a screen. That's why we refuse to do this show through a screen. But then it went obviously fully remote. And now we have a little bit of a hybrid and some tensions. Yeah, and there's some tensions. But my reasoning, and this gets met with resistance for sure, because people feel like you're taking things away from them, is that over time you are gonna deal with different kind of stressors and different kind of issues and different kind of personnel problems by having that disconnect too consistently.

[Michael Bostic]

100%. I have a virtual company. I had a virtual company since I started it many years before COVID We made sure to build in human interaction. So we have the annual off site where the whole team. And the first time we did the off site, our young employees were like, nope, nope, nope. I don't want to travel? No. And we were like, you kind of got to do it. And they loved it. When can we do the next one? Can we do it for longer? You know, because there's nothing better than laughing with someone or sitting with somebody quietly after dinner and having a drink next to the fireplace and just opening up. And this is what we forget. Right. If you think about what happens in a company, which is Isaac Stern, the famous violinist, he said music is what happens between the notes. Right. And human beings trust is what happens between the meetings. Like, you don't build trust in a meeting. It just doesn't happen. But it's the conversation you have walking into the meeting. Like, hey, I heard your dad's sick. Yeah, thanks for asking. He's doing much better. Right. It's the conversation you have when you walk out of the meeting where that's when all the decisions get made. It's the, hey, you want to grab a coffee? You want to go with me? I'm gonna go down the street. Oh, I'd love a break. Yeah. And it's that just even if you're not talking, it's the being in communion, it's walking with someone, it's the feeling of safety when you're walking next to someone. All of those things over time, like a relationship, I can't tell you when, I can't tell you how long, but over time you're like, huh, really trust you. Right. And what we've done is removed all of those spaces, and online is just the meeting. Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

How do you know when to bring a friend closer or when to cut a friend?

[Michael Bostic]

So I think it's funny that when your marriage is struggling, you don't immediately say divorce. You say, I think we need to talk to somebody. And you do the hard work of seeing if you can rescue the friendship. Right.

[Simon Sinek]

That's a lot of work.

[Michael Bostic]

I know.

[Simon Sinek]

It's a lot of work, Simon.

[Michael Bostic]

I know. And it's expensive.

[Simon Sinek]

That's a lot of work. And you want me to carry the baby.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah, I know, I know. Woo. So you do the therapy, and I.

[Lauren Everts]

Don'T want you to complain. I want you to be quiet.

[Michael Bostic]

Now I feel I need to change. Is this something.

[Lauren Everts]

I'm just kidding.

[Michael Bostic]

Is this gonna become a couples therapy?

[Lauren Everts]

I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I don't know.

[Michael Bostic]

Tell me more about my intrusive thoughts.

[Lauren Everts]

My intrusive thoughts won, so.

[Michael Bostic]

And you know both parties need to show up. Right. If one party is well intentioned, the other party is disconnected. That Relationship's going to fail, right? But you do the hard work, right? If you're having a problem at work, you know, with your boss or with a colleague or whatever it is, you tell somebody else. You have an effective confrontation because you've learned that human skill. Good for you. Maybe you talk to hr. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don't. But you at least try and repair the relationship. Because passive aggressive at work is not going to work out. Right. But for some reason, we have a lower standard with friendships. Like, you know, one friendship violates one friend, violates the trust, and that's it. I can't be friends with you anymore. But you've been friends with them for 10 years. You keep saying they're your best friend. Yeah, I know, but what they did, I can't. Clearly I got it all wrong. And I think it's amazing how quickly we walk away from friendships. So I think there needs to be friendship therapy. I think you need to go with a friend to be able to say, we had this horrible fight and we think it's important that we try and resolve this. Can you help us? Because clearly we can't do it by ourselves.

[Simon Sinek]

And what if it's not so cut? What if it's not one thing? What if it's just people growing apart?

[Michael Bostic]

That happens. There's nothing wrong. Look, I'm not so Pollyanna ish to think that once you meet somebody, they're your friend for life. I've outgrown friends. Friends have outgrown me. Life changes, values changes. I've grown. You know, I had a friend who we were inseparable. I became a better version of myself. He, year after year was the exact same person. And I got tired of having the same conversations about how he hated his boss. I'm like, so get a new frickin job. Like, I couldn't do it anymore, you know? And so we grew apart. Nothing personal, just nobody's angry at each other. Just it happens, you know, and that's totally fine.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Michael Bostic]

And I think we have to. You have to remember that friends play different roles. Like we have friends, that we just enjoy their company. I'm not gonna confide in you. Right? But I have fun with you. Right? And there I think. And I think people have a lot of superficial relationships or just fun relationships. I'm totally fine with that. I'm not talking about any of that stuff. I'm talking about the need for deep, meaningful relationships. Whether you have one best friend or a small group of best friends or a nice network. But People and this is going to be a funny one. People who you not only can call in times of need or desperation or fear or anxiety or confusion. And to call somebody, be like, I'm scared, I need to cry. Like I have a rule with my friends. And all my friends know this, my close friends, which is no crying alone. That's my rule. If you, if something's happening in your life that is overwhelming you and you are by yourself and you do not know what to do, you call one of doesn't have to be me, but you call on somebody in the network and you say, I need to talk. And I've had friends call me and they just vented and cried. And I've done the same to friends and those friends you need. And here's something which I find really funny that I stumbled upon in learning about friendship. We all have a small group of friends that we would call that we can be that vulnerable with, right? Where we can say, I'm struggling, I'm not doing well, my marriage is falling apart, you know, my job's falling apart, I'm falling apart. Whatever it is we have that I hope, I hope. What I find amazing is it's an even smaller group of friends that you can call and brag, I'm a frickin boss. I nailed this.

[Lauren Everts]

That is insane.

[Michael Bostic]

I am a frickin hero. Can I just call you and tell you this amazing thing I did, this amazing success I experienced.

[Simon Sinek]

I must be your friend that you bragged to, right?

[Michael Bostic]

But what I find amazing is that that group of people is even smaller than the group of people you can call and say I have a problem. Because it is so vulnerable.

[Simon Sinek]

If you think about it, that's interesting.

[Michael Bostic]

It is so vulnerable to make yourself the center of attention. It is so vulnerable to want to just celebrate me. And the person on the other side sitting next to you on the other side of the phone has no jealousy, no envy. And all they want to do is be like, amazing, you're amazing, I love you, I'm so proud to be your friend.

[Lauren Everts]

So is that one, the vulnerability. But two, is it rare to have that good of friends that actually want that for you?

[Michael Bostic]

I think like I said, the number of friends that I can do that with is smaller than the number of friends that I can call and be like, I'm struggling. Because people think about it when, when you get to be the person that holds space for somebody that's struggling. It's an amazing feeling. It's an amazing feeling to have that skill set like, if you have worked on yourself and you have done the work to know how to hold space for a friend, right? That gets me in another rant. You really got me in a very ranty mood tonight today.

[Lauren Everts]

Rant away.

[Simon Sinek]

Rant it.

[Michael Bostic]

Rant it up aside, and then I will come back. Rent. I was at this meeting, and there's a bunch of different people sitting around the table. And the person sitting next to me apparently was a famous yoga instructor. And her whole time in the meeting, she was on her phone under the table. And I can see what she was doing. I'm sitting right next to her. It's not like there was a family member in the hospital and she's getting updates or something, right? She's on social media. I can see, right? And at some point, the conversation turned to being present and her head popped up and she goes, that's why I love yoga, because it helps me be present. And I'm like, you're an idiot.

[Lauren Everts]

What was her name?

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah, so. And then I started to think about it, right? Then I started to think about, we've made all of these Eastern things, things deeply, deeply selfish, because that's what we do in America. We make it about us, right? So you think about meditation, right? And there's a big push for meditation right now. And meditation has an amazing number of benefits for the self, which is one of the reasons being promoted, right? First of all, this idea of being present. That's why I like being present, right? I think you don't get to say when you're present until somebody else says you are, right? I think there's two kinds of presence. It's like, sure, you can be present by yourself. Feels amazing. Great, great. Okay. But you don't know if you're present with somebody else until they say you're present, right? So think about meditation. Think about meditation. Here's what we do. When you learn to meditate, number one, you learn to focus on one thing. There's no such thing as clearing your mind. That doesn't exist, right? You can't think about nothing, right? And so you can focus on your mantra or your breath or a dot on the wall or a sound or whatever it is, but the whole point is you focus on one thing. You learn concentration to concentrate on one thing. And if you have a thought, we've all learned what to do. You say you label that a thought and put it aside and say, I'll deal with that later, right? And then you find this incredible calm, this incredible presence. And yes, it has all These medical benefits for you. Okay, Wonderful present. Okay. Now you're sitting with a friend. They're telling you something good, something bad. Who knows what. They're just telling you about their day, and you have learned to focus on them and what they're telling you, and only what they're telling you. And you have a thought, but you label it a thought, and you say, and it's not about me right now, and I'll deal with that later. And there's a conversation going on over here that you can't even hear because you're so focused on your friend. And you are now present for your friend. So you have been practicing meditation not just for yourself, you've been practicing meditation so that you have the skillset to be a better friend. At the end of that conversation, your friend will say, thank you for listening. Wow, thank you so much. Or, oh, my God, thank you for being so present for me. Congratulations. You win a meditation award because you've learned a skill set and you now have applied it in a pro social way. So, yes, it has a selfish benefit, but it also has a selfless benefit. And we only talk about the selfish benefits. We don't apply this. So somebody could be some master meditator and the world's worst listener. Well, you have the skills. Why aren't you using them for your friends? Right. So rant over about meditation.

[Lauren Everts]

No, no, no. But it makes a ton of sense. And I think most people approach meditation just for me. Just exactly.

[Michael Bostic]

And by the way, great, right. But there are selfless men. This is the paradox of being human. And this is where Maslov, you know, the Maslov hierarchy of needs. Right. This is where Maslov got it wrong. Right. So Maslov says the most fundamental, the basic, that the bottom of the pyramid of the hierarchy of needs is food and shelter. Right.

[Lauren Everts]

Okay.

[Michael Bostic]

Seems to make sense. Level number three, human relationships. And the top of the pyramid, self actualization. Okay. The mistake Maslov made is that he failed to consider the paradox of being human. That every moment of every day, we are both individuals and members of groups. Every day, I am me, but I'm also a member of a team, a family, a church, whatever, you know, a sports team. And every day I'm confronted with both little and big options. Do I put myself first at the sacrifice of the team, or do I put the team first, the group first, at the sacrifice of me? And there's a whole school of thought that says you look after yourself first, otherwise you can't be there for the others. There's Another school of thought that says, nope, you always take care of others so they can be there for you. You're both right and you're both wrong. It's a paradox, right? Now go back to Maslov's hierarchy of needs. He only thought about it as a thought about us as individuals, 100% as an individual. If I'm on a desert island, yep, survival number one, food and shelter, that is the first thing I care about. But if you think about us as members of groups now, the hierarchy changes. I've never heard of anybody dying by suicide because they didn't have food or shelter. I've heard of people dying by suicide because they were lonely. Okay? Which means the hierarchy is different. And self actualization sounds very selfish. Can you imagine sitting at the top of the pyramid looking down at all the unactualized people? What about shared actualization? And this goes back to the AI friend. Sure, you're helping me actualize, but I never get the joy of helping you actualize. And the joy of friendship is not me or you, it's that it's us. A community is a group of people that agree to grow together. A friend is a partnership, a pairing of two people who agree to grow together. I will support you and you will support me. It won't always be balanced. Sometimes it'll be lopsided, but over the course of time, everything will even out in the wash. When you talk about when to walk away from friends is sometimes it becomes so lopsided and you've tried to address it. Because remember, friendship is about trust, not about actions. So nobody walks around with a notebook in their back pocket and keeps track of all the things I've done for you and all the things you've done for me. And nobody has an accounting at the end of the month, going, this month, I did 12 things for you that you asked me to do and you did none. I asked you to do four and you did one. There's something wrong with we don't do that. You could do a hundred things for someone and they will do nothing for you. But you walk around with the absolute, deep seated confidence that the one day you need them, you know, without a doubt they'll be there for you. And that's why we call them friend. Right?

[Lauren Everts]

And if you think about it from, like, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I think about it from a business structure. A company is a group of people working collaboratively together on a single.

[Michael Bostic]

When it's functional.

[Lauren Everts]

Yes, when it's functional. When it's Dysfunctional. There is a lot of individuals or individuals needs and interests and that's why these things fall apart.

[Michael Bostic]

That's why these things fall apart.

[Lauren Everts]

When we talk here in this company, I said listen, like above all else, above performance, above sales, above it, culture comes first. If you are not good for the culture, if you're not working collaborative, if you're not getting along people, you're not, it's, it's gonna fall apart. So people gotta go.

[Michael Bostic]

You just helped actually me, you actually gave me.

[Simon Sinek]

Yes, but he gave you an idea.

[Michael Bostic]

He gave me an idea.

[Lauren Everts]

But as you think. But it's, it's really like you gotta share the idea. So what I've discovered here, running this business is I have to do very little motivation or correcting or incentivizing through, you know, the typical incentive. It's all I have to do is reinforce the court, reinforce the culture and make sure people are working in a great environment with people that they respect and like and enjoy. And honestly, the rest of the stuff kind of takes care of itself.

[Michael Bostic]

I know it's, and it's it. The, and the problem is, is, is you know this because you've done it. Every other successful entrepreneur who's built any kind of culture worth writing about or talking about will tell us the same thing, right? To the point where we all know if you just take care of the people, the people take care of the business. We've all heard it a thousand times. And why don't more people do it? And it's because it's mushy and it's fuzzy and it's hard to measure in discrete packets. And it's hard to measure, it's hard to put a dollar on it. Now we know that those companies will outperform. We know those companies will be more efficient. We know those companies, the machines won't break as often because people care about keeping the machine and working. We're like, we know all this, but the data only plays out over the course of time.

[Lauren Everts]

It's also self listening. I don't know if I've ever said this as an employer, selfishly. It's why I'm not afraid to lose people. People in the room. Like what? Because when the culture exists and it's great and there's a mission, a lot of people want to come into that culture where like, if you have a bad organization with a bad culture, a lot of people are waiting to escape to find the next thing so that they can get out of it. You know what I mean? So for Me, my thing is like, grow, grow, grow. Be happy. Like, if you want to go on to the next thing, let me help you get there. But I'm never worried about people joining that want to be part of it, because I know it's special.

[Michael Bostic]

People have to graduate from jobs sometimes, which is, you know, I don't want to be in this one job forever. It doesn't mean I'm quitting. It doesn't mean I failed. It just means I'd like to graduate. And so we can celebrate their graduation and help them land the next thing. Right. I just believe in that. The respect and dignity should be both ways, you know, especially company to employee. You hope. Employee to company, right? Yeah, 100%. Right. But this is the reason why most people, most companies don't use my work. I've written about. Start with why? I've written about Leaders Eat Last. I've written about the Infinite Game. And most people won't use my work.

[Lauren Everts]

Why?

[Michael Bostic]

Because my work is like exercise. Right? Which is, if you come to me and say, simon, I want to get into shape, how do I do it? I'd be like, super easy. All you need to do is work out every single day for 20 minutes, and I guarantee, I guarantee 100% success rate, you will get into shape. When you ask me, I don't know. I know 100% it's going to work, but I don't know. And neither does any doctor. And that's what my work is. My work is a discipline. Right. Starting with why is a discipline. Maintaining an infinite mindset is a discipline. And 100% of the time, it works. I know it does. The problem is it may not meet your quarter, it may not meet your year, it may not give you the result that you want in the timeframe that you want it. And most companies are so driven by arbitrary numbers and arbitrary timeframes that they're not going to ever invest in something that they cannot safely predict exactly when it's going to happen. So they just don't.

[Simon Sinek]

That's a bummer.

[Michael Bostic]

Sometimes it's quick and sometimes it's slow, but 100% of the times, it works.

[Lauren Everts]

On the start with why, Lane, if you are not just an inspiring entrepreneur, but aspiring anything, you want to create something, you want to create a podcast.

[Michael Bostic]

Aspiring creator.

[Lauren Everts]

Creator of anything. Anything. And you were starting from scratch.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah.

[Lauren Everts]

How would you coach people to approach. My biggest difficulty for the longest time is people would always come to me with this, what's your passion? What's your passion? And it fully Screwed me up until I figured out the reason to do things. But if someone comes to you and says, simon, I have X idea, what do you think? What are the first pieces of advice you're giving them in terms of how to start?

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah. So the funny thing is, and you and I were talking about this offline before we started, which is the best companies, the best ideas are when somebody found a solution to solve their problem or somebody they care about's problem or to in some way shape or form genuinely alleviate some sort of pressure in their lives. And that solution became the business, you know, and people who just say, I want to be an entrepreneur, I'm looking for a business to start. Those aren't great businesses because you're driven by the wrong thing. There's no passion for that. It's like people come up to me and say, simon, I want to be a public speaker. I'm like, great. What do you want to speak about? Well, I don't know yet. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I never wanted to be a public speaker. Like, it was, it wasn't even on the list. Right. I found something that I desperately cared about, and all I wanted to do was talk about it. So I fell in love with something first. And so I, I. And even when I was, when I had a corporate job, when I was a young, when I was a young kid, you know, they would. HR would say to me, what's your vision for yourself? And I'd be like, oh, I'd like to start a business one day. Like, I knew I had it in me. Right. I literally was telling them, I'm going to quit. It's amazing that anybody gave me a job. But the question was, I didn't when the opportunity showed up, like, when I knew what and when I knew when. And so I had a job for a while. And, you know, I think that. And you and I were talking about this as well, which is the statistic for somebody who starts a new business. The odds of failure are absolutely overwhelming. Over 90% of new businesses will fail in the first three years. I mean, it is an astonishing, astonishing number.

[Simon Sinek]

Why?

[Michael Bostic]

I mean, there's many, many reasons. One, they shouldn't be businesses in the first place. Two, the person is.

[Simon Sinek]

There's no why.

[Michael Bostic]

There's no why. The person doesn't know. I mean, in my case, the leader's eating first. The leader's eating first. In my case. In my case, I nearly went out of business because I was running on force of personality. And what nearly put Me out of business was actually some success because I was doing okay, but I had to be in every meeting, make every decision. And so that's not scalable. And so when I actually had to build structure, and I think that happens to a lot because it happens at about two or three years when you start finding your footing and you're like, okay, I got a good value proposition, I got a good product. But the problem is you have no clue how to build a structure. And that's all a company is. It's a structure. And if you don't have structural abilities or know how to hire or partner with somebody who does have structural abilities, a good operator, it's going to collapse. Or you're just going to have a lifestyle business. You're just going to, you're just going.

[Simon Sinek]

To have to make the brand bigger.

[Michael Bostic]

Than yourself and have the ability to scale it beyond the personality.

[Lauren Everts]

It's a structural thing though. You're right, it's a structural thing. I look at it as like, almost like an erector set as you're building a. You know, when you're a kid, you'd build the things and it can only stand up so tall unless you like.

[Michael Bostic]

Get a buttresses on you. And look, you can run on force of personality. You just can't scale force of personality. I think you have to. It's kind of like looking. I think starting a good business is kind of like looking for love. Like you can look for love, but you're not going to marry the first pretty person you meet. You know, you kind of like, you just, you gotta. Because passion, passion is an output, not an input. People think, you know, do something you're passionate for. Like, well, everybody has passion. We should have passion for the same. Like I love when companies, I only hire passionate people. What does that even. I don't even know how you, I don't even know how you interview for that. They'll tell you about how they love doing Lego. Doesn't mean they're going to be a great employee, right? Like, we all have passions, but I think when you find something you believe in, then the output you get is passion. What you get is love. Like, I like you, I don't love you, right? So I think that if somebody has entrepreneurial ambitions, they should find someone they believe in that they want to follow. Because it doesn't have to be your idea. You can join a small business and be like, I love this person, I love their idea, I love what they're trying to do in the world. I want to take the huge, overwhelming risk to be a part of that, recognizing that my job is going to be 10 things more than I thought it was going to be. Right. Like even not even being the entrepreneur, but joining an entrepreneurial venture, I think is the same mentality. You're nuts unless you kind of like the fun of it, you know, but you have to fall in love with something or someone there, you know, and. Yeah, I can feel it. What?

[Simon Sinek]

But also, I was going to say this when you were talking about friendship. Taylor and Michael and I have been friends since we were 12.

[Michael Bostic]

But that makes sense to me.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Michael Bostic]

Because when you first start a business, right, you don't have a why. You're not going through a why discovery process. All the stuff that I talk about when you're at ground zero and you're starting is all irrelevant, but it actually doesn't matter because the first people you hire are your friends. Why do you hire your friends? Because they love you and you love them. Why do you bring them on? Because they trust you and you trust them. They may or may not have the right skills, but it's good enough for now. And so you can bumble and fumble it at the early stages of a company. And all of the things that I talk about, the why and the hows and the values it's all built in. The why and the hows become more important as you start to have some success. And now you're forced to. To hire people who aren't your friends. Right. We all hired our friends out of the gate. Of course we did. Because it's baked in the love, the trust, the passion, the community. It's all baked in. Not scalable, wonderful fun. And if you want to just stop there and make a lifestyle business, do that, do that. It's great. You know, you can make a good living.

[Simon Sinek]

What's the difference between leaders who eat first and leaders who eat last year? I mean, it sounds simple, but just explain it from your perspective.

[Michael Bostic]

Sure. So that title, the book Leaders Eat Last, came from a conversation I had with a Marine, a U.S. marine. Right. I asked him a simple question. Why are Marines so good at what they do? And he looked at me, said, officers Eat Last, right? Now, if you visit any Marine base anywhere in the world and it's chow time, you will see Marines line up in rank order. The most junior Marine eats first, the most senior Marine eats last.

[Simon Sinek]

I didn't know that.

[Michael Bostic]

And if they are the same rank, they will literally fight about, well, you've been in here for 20 years. I've been here for 25 years. You eat before me. There was no order given. It's not in any rule book. It is a deeply seated cultural thing that somebody with seniority looks after the person who has less seniority. And what that does is it produces a culture of camaraderie and esprit de corps that is hard to match. So if you go into an austere condition where food is much more scarce and we're eating MREs and the bagged food that Marines will eat in combat, the officer will make sure, literally, that their Marines will eat before them. And I know many stories where the officer gives up their food so that their Marines can eat. And what the Marines will do is all give up a little bit of their food to ensure that their officer eats as well. And so what you get is reciprocity. And it's just like kids, right? You have. There's no parent who eats and then feeds their child.

[Lauren Everts]

I don't know. Lauren's been pregnant for many years.

[Simon Sinek]

Have you met me? So I might eat before my kids right now.

[Lauren Everts]

We ordered the kids meal the other day. I'm like, you just ate all the kids food. It's gone. You're starving.

[Michael Bostic]

But because she's protecting the baby inside.

[Simon Sinek]

Of her, whatever you want to think.

[Michael Bostic]

So she's feeding the baby inside of her. I'll work with you. So, but, like, think about it, like, the amount of times a young. Like, when you have young kids, you're eating macaroni and cheese over the sink, and you would never put the kid in the chair and be like, let's have dinner, and when we're done with dinner, we'll pee. That you always feed the kids first.

[Simon Sinek]

That's true, right?

[Michael Bostic]

Why? Because that's your job, right? That is the job of a parent to take off to look after those who, by the way, they're old enough to go to the fridge and make themselves dinner right now. But you don't. You make sure they eat first or at least eat and later they eat with the family, right? And what you get is love back. What you get is, mom, dad, can you help me with my math problems? Like, what you get is trust and reliance back because you have taken care of them. It's the exact same thing on a team. It's a human relationship. So when a leader eats last, When a leader proverbial. Proverbially, I can't get it out. When the leader eats last, I'll just leave it out altogether. Both sometimes literally but philosophically. What you get is gratitude. What you get is loyalty. What you get is the willingness to say, I need your help, because that's the relationship you've built. And that's exactly what the best leaders in the military have done.

[Lauren Everts]

I find in a different correlation, if you're leading anything, and I try to reinforce this, not always perfect, but try to, is that if a mistake happens in the business and you're the first person to say, I screwed up, I screwed up. My bad. Didn't communicate it properly, didn't set up the right system, didn't set up the right structure. It creates what you're talking about here, which is people then say, well, let's all solve it together. Where if you push the blame down, down, down, then that just keeps getting pushed down and nobody wants to work to solve it together.

[Michael Bostic]

Yep.

[Lauren Everts]

It's like. It's this really, like, it's this accountability that exists, where you have one situation where everyone's just blaming everyone else and nobody's fixing it, or you have another situation where everyone's like, hey, there's a mistake. Let's all fix it together.

[Michael Bostic]

I mean, this is exactly what leaders eat last is when it's not related to food.

[Simon Sinek]

My grandma used to always tell me, I'd be like, what is love and what is. She says that there's a piece of the most delicious chocolate cake on the table, and you want the person before you to have the last bite.

[Lauren Everts]

Would you not love me then?

[Simon Sinek]

I know sometimes I don't do that.

[Michael Bostic]

Unless you're Dutch.

[Simon Sinek]

Why? Oh, is that bad latch.

[Michael Bostic]

So, no, the Dutch.

[Lauren Everts]

You must be Dutch.

[Simon Sinek]

I must be Dutch.

[Michael Bostic]

The Dutch are different to us, right? So I learned this. I learned. So I'm in Amsterdam. How do they say it? Amsterdam. I'm in Amsterdam and I have a Dutch friend. So we went out and she brought a friend of hers. So I'm out with a bunch of Dutch people, right? And we were having something. We were sharing a plate, and I don't remember what it was, and there was one left. Now, I always learned. We learned. Like, we go, you have the last one. No, you have the last one. No, you have the last one. Eventually, somebody gives in, right? When there's one left, this guy just leans over and just eats it. And I was like, what the hell? Like, you rude bastard. Right? And then another plate, we're all sharing. Last one. And he just leans over and eats it. I couldn't help myself. I'd be like, I have to ask. Like, I wanted that.

[Simon Sinek]

What did he Say, like, I would.

[Michael Bostic]

Have given it to you, but you should have at least offered it to me. Right? And he goes, oh, no, that's not how we do it in Holland. And she looks at me and goes, yeah, we don't do that in Holland. Right. Because in Holland, the awkwardness and the discomfort of know you. No, you. No, you. It's actually considered more polite to just be the one who just takes it. And then there's no argument I should move on now to Holland.

[Simon Sinek]

Here's a hat hack, a health hack. Fay Nutrition. Fay connects you directly with registered dietitians, the real food and nutrition experts. So what you get here is a personalized nutrition counseling tailored specifically to you. And the best part of this, and this is so cool, you guys, is that all the dietitians on Fay take insurance. So 95% of people pay $0 for their session. That's crazy. $0. Everything that they do is designed to help your energy levels, your mood, how well you sleep, and of course, obviously your long term health. So whether you're trying to lose weight or you're dealing with low energy or you have digestive discomfort or you're managing conditions like pcos or diabetes, maybe you even have food allergies, they want to give you personalized guidance that can really give you the support that you need. Dietitians on Faye specialize in over 30 areas including weight loss, sports nutrition, women's health, and postpartum. I think this is so cool to have at your fingertips. 100,000 people improve their lives through improved nutrition and lifestyle on Fay. Having a personalized nutritionist used to cost big bucks, but not anymore. With Fay. Listeners of the him and her show can qualify to see a registered dietitian for as little as $0 by visiting feynutrition.com skinny that's feynutrition.com skinny one last time. That's faynutrition.com skinny make sure you use our URL so they know that we sent you. I just got the weight of my baby. It's a big baby. I honestly think one of the reasons that it's such a big baby is I took creatine throughout my whole pregnancy. I've never done that before. This is the first time that I've done creatine. Obviously, check with your doctor, but the creatine that I take is by momentous. I love this brand for supplements. They have such integrity when it comes to their supplements. They've been awarded nine research and innovation contracts with the US Military and they take their supplements very serious. Everything is built on trust and transparency. So what I do with momentous creatine is I will do amino acids in my ice water. I do like a mango amino acid and then I will habit stack it with a scoop of creatine. I do this every single time I work out and I froth it up and I take it to the gym and I drink it on the go. And it was really cool when we interviewed Ivanka Trump because she also raved about creatine. I think creatine's really having a moment with women. I think women are seeing how amazing it is. What I've noticed with creatine for me is it like tightens my skin around the muscle. So you gotta try it. Their creatine is the purest form available. It's for men and women. Michael takes it too. So if you're ready to switch it up to a company who is doing it differently and putting you first had to livemomentous.com and use code skinny for 35 off your first subscription. That's code [e-mail] for 35% off your first subscription.

[Lauren Everts]

Quick break to talk about Chime. I love smart financial tools, which is why I'm so excited to talk to you guys today about Chime. There is nothing worse than the headaches that come when you're dealing with your personal finances and the progress that you want to make there. Could it be overdraft fees, missed payments, or wishing that you had saved more? With Chime, they understand that every dollar counts and that's why when you set up direct deposit through Chime, you get access to free features like overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit and more. There is also nothing worse than when you need service and you can't get it. Which is also why I love Chimes customer Service. They have 247 customer support and it comes in handy when you need to get hold of someone to figure out what's going on with your financial well being. They also have tools with daily balance updates and real time transaction alerts, which will help shape spending habits and make you aware of what you're actually coming in and leaving your account. So if you've been thinking about a new banking relationship and you want it done right, you can open a checking account with no monthly fees and no maintenance fees. You can get paid a payment to two days early when you set up direct deposit. And with qualifying direct deposits, you're eligible for free overdraft of up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals. Again, there's nothing worse than not having peace of mind when it comes to your financial well being, and Chime can help you get there. So if you're looking for an account you can trust, you can do so with Chime. It is easy, it is convenient, and it is accessible. They have over 50,000 free ATMs, which is more than the top three national banks combined. So check them out. Work on your financial group goals through Chime today. Open an account in 2 [e-mail] skinny that's chime.com skinny Chime feels like progress.

[Michael Bostic]

Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA members. FDIC Spot me Eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file fees. Apply it out of network ATMs bank ranking and number of ATMs according to US News and World Report 2023 chime checking account required.

[Simon Sinek]

This episode is brought to you by the Skinny Confidential the newest launch Brow Peptide oh I'm so excited about this one. I have been using castor oil as you know, on my brows and eyelashes and sometimes even on like little spots on my hairline forever. And the Egyptians used to use it in ancient times to grow their hair so it makes sense that we would use it now. But I couldn't find one with a little extra umph so I wanted to create my own. I added a peptide 2 organic clean cold pressed castor oil. So it's kind of like castor oil on steroids. The peptide that we added nourishes your hair follicle and really helps you grow hair. So the castor oil already grows the hair and you add the peptide and it's amazing. So how I use this product is I use it morning and night right when I'm done with my skincare routine. So I've sort of like habit stacked it. What I do is I ice roll, do my skincare routine, put on my caffeinated sunscreen and then immediately in the morning I brush my brows with the Brow peptide and I also add it to my lashes even sometimes my hairline. At night I do the same exact thing without the sunscreen obviously and then I'll go to bed and I'll reap all the beauty benefits while I sleep. It's obviously non toxic, it comes in a beautiful pink tube and it has a unique custom wand where you can apply it on your brows or your lashes you're gonna be obsessed with this one. It's kind of like my baby. I'm very excited for it. You can go to shopskinnyconfidential.com I would get on subscription because we're probably gonna sell out. We do sell out a lot. Go shop our brow [e-mail]. your video on millennials in the workplace, it went viral. Crazy.

[Michael Bostic]

Yep.

[Simon Sinek]

Why? What's your view?

[Michael Bostic]

So it came at a time when the most common question I got asked, like, every talk I gave, every meeting, literally 100%, the first one or two questions I got asked is millennials in the workplace. Apparently, they're unleadable. Like, what the hell am I doing? Right? And so I had to fashion an answer. And so instead of saying, well, here's the problem with millennials, you know, I said, well, let's look at this empathetically. Let's take a look at the environment in which they've grown up. Because we're all products of our environment. You know, it's like if your grandparents grew up during the Second World War, the Depression, they're super miserly. Like, they reuse all the jam jars and save all the unused aluminum foil, right? Well, there's nothing wrong with them. There's no personality defect. It's because they grew up in the Depression, right? Like, it affects the way they live their lives. Right? Like, somebody who grows up poor, like, treats food very differently than somebody who grows up rich. Right? Like, we are products of our environment. So. So instead of just whining, complaining about millennials, let's take a look at how they grew up. Let's look at the rise of technology in their lives, and let's look at how parenting styles changed, that they were subjected to pretty shitty parenting because their parents were swooped in and fixed everything.

[Simon Sinek]

So there's like, an entitlement issue.

[Michael Bostic]

I mean, it comes out as entitlement. But, like, when. When. When my generation got in trouble at school, our parents said to us, what did you do now? Right? But younger generations, when they get in trouble at school now, the parents go, what's wrong with your teachers? What is wrong with that school?

[Simon Sinek]

I think I'm gonna do a medium. Like, I'm gonna go medium. I think I'm gonna say, figure it out.

[Michael Bostic]

Medium is better. Yeah, medium is better.

[Simon Sinek]

I think you're gonna have to go figure it out.

[Michael Bostic]

I mean, it's not. It's not. But. But so. And by the way, this data about the parenting doesn't come from it Comes from the parents of themselves. The parents of millennials, like, look at their kids and be like, ah, it's my fault. Sorry. You know, like, it's. A lot of the data comes from the parents themselves. It's really funny. But the overprotection has. Has implications. And if you just look at the way even. And we talked about how capitalism changed, you know, they grew up. They grew up in a time where layoffs became normalized. The concept of a mass layoff in the United States didn't exist prior to the 1980s. Didn't exist.

[Lauren Everts]

I did not know that. That's interesting.

[Michael Bostic]

Did not exist. Right. You only laid people off if the company was like, like, word in serious decline. And, like, we got to do something drastic to save the business. But the idea is, like, we missed our numbers. We're profitable, just not as profitable as we wanted to be. If you lose your job, which is kind of how we do things now, literally didn't exist. It was popularized in the 80s and 90s by leaders like Jack Welch, the CEO of GE, and others like him. And now it's normal, right? So think about it. This generation grew up watching their parents or their friends. Parents lose their jobs through no fault of their own. It's not a meritocracy. Not a meritocracy, right? And so these people work hard, they do good work, but then they come to work one day like, yeah, I'm sorry, you're getting laid off because we missed our numbers. That's how they grew up. And so flash forward when they enter the workforce, and now companies are like, you give us your loyalty. And they're like, no, let's go with no because I know you give me nothing. And, like, one of the big complaints about young people today and this what appears like entitlement. Like, when you and I were starting our careers, we would work really hard, we would excel at something, and then we would go to our boss and say, look at how much extra I've done. I'd like a raise or a promotion. Okay, now you don't get that. Now you're like, like, I'd like a raise or promotion now. And then you're going to see what I'm going to do. And they're not wrong if you consider how they grew up, because they grew up in a world where giving extra, you could just lose your job tomorrow because we missed our arbitrary projections. So they're like, you know what? Cash in now because no guarantees later. And so they're playing by the rules. The company set so you have to build a company that operates differently if you want the behaviors to be different. But at a corporate level, at a sort of. At a mass market sort of generic level, the rules have shifted. And the irony is companies are complaining, but they're the ones that set the rules, and the young employers are simply playing by the rules the company set.

[Lauren Everts]

What's scary, though, and worth mentioning, is some of that thought process can work when there's a ton of job availability, but when things get really competitive, going back to competitive, what I always tell people when I think about for my kids is you can coddle people as much as you want, you can be as soft, you can create participation trophies. But if you get into the real world where competition starts to get tight again and you're used to that, you're at a real disadvantage.

[Michael Bostic]

I went on a podcast and I made the statement that got a lot of shit. Like, I got a lot of criticism for this, what I'm about to say. And I was surprised by it because it wasn't my opinion. It was just sort of this warning, right? Which is the younger generation today is very comfortable with quitting, and they don't necessarily even have to have a job lined up. They're like, no, this is not for me, right? And again, the weaker loyalty. So it makes it even easier. But they're very comfortable quitting. And you see them going through their jobs. I would never have quit a job in less than a year for fear of ruining my resume.

[Lauren Everts]

I won't hire people that I see that do that. I don't.

[Michael Bostic]

So you're making my point. Which is? Which is, if somebody's going to have six jobs or seven jobs in five years, there's two things I know, right? A, they haven't gone through hell, they haven't gone through stress, which means they might have been in the workforce for five years, but they don't have the seniority of somebody who's been in the workforce for five years because they haven't been tested. They keep leaving, right? When the going gets tough, right? They keep leaving. Now, not every job was toxic. The statistics couldn't bear that out, right? That's impossible, right?

[Lauren Everts]

If every job is toxic, then at some point you got to do some soul searching.

[Michael Bostic]

It's like the only common factor in all my failed relationships is they were all crazy. No, it was me, damn it. So there's that. And then you just said it, which is, you're going to get to the point in your career where any leader worth their salt is just not going to offer you a job because the expectation is you're just going to leave here in five or six months because either something better comes along or something upsets you.

[Lauren Everts]

And to be clear, I'm not looking for blind loyalty on day one or enthusiasm, but I'm also not looking to be a stopping off point so that you can really.

[Michael Bostic]

I'm happy for people to graduate and go on to better things. I love the entrepreneurial ventures. I've had people quit to go start their own businesses and I cheer them on.

[Lauren Everts]

People who work with me quit and me be supportive of going and doing the right thing.

[Michael Bostic]

I love all that. But the point is, all I issued was a warning, which is if you quit that many jobs right, you're not gonna get the experience to operate at a senior level. So you might get the position and you're gonna flail. So now you're gonna have self confidence issues because you just haven't learned the skills of quote unquote difficult or you would just struggle to find a job. Yeah, I mean, you'll just struggle to find a job with a good company because a good leader is just not gonna take a risk on that kind of resume.

[Lauren Everts]

When I, it's.

[Michael Bostic]

And it was just a warning and people got so upset at me and they said, oh, I'm just saying that because I'm an employer and blah, blah.

[Lauren Everts]

No, but it's.

[Michael Bostic]

Right.

[Lauren Everts]

I mean, I mean, Lauren and I will sometimes go speak at schools now. Many of these schools would have thrown my application in the trash on first glance.

[Michael Bostic]

Ironic, isn't it? I taught at Columbia at a graduate level and my grades weren't good enough to get into my own program.

[Lauren Everts]

But what I tell people, I try to point out some of these things we're discussing to the next generation because now I'm a little bit older and I sit in the seat of a potential employer for people. And I just kind of try to point out some of the things you're articulating now, which is I see these people doing like there's strategies now online that teaches people how to do these kind of things. And like, hey, you work here and then you, you negotiate for a better job in the next one. You just do that every kind of year. Like there's people that put that stuff out there. And I'm like, yes, it will work for a short period of time.

[Michael Bostic]

It'll last. It'll, it'll, it's, you're treating a career transactionally 100%. It works in the short period 100%. 100%.

[Lauren Everts]

But if you're going to have a career, career, 40 or 50 years, you are front loading. And by the way, when you're starting, you're getting the least amount of pay. As you get later into your career, hopefully you get the most amount of pay. So you're trading short periods of pay at the least amounts at the long term expense of not being able to get the things that will pay greater amounts for long term expense.

[Michael Bostic]

The advice I've always given to young people is treat an entry level job or an early level job job like it's just graduate school, like it's the next part of your education, right? You're going to school like you're not going to get rich, but you're going to get the best education of your life, right? And treat it like, like come today. And by the way, there's nothing you can do that's going to break the company because you're too junior anyway, right? So learn how to say I made a mistake. Learn how to ask for help, learn new skills, learn how to create teams, learn how to be a leader. Learn how to look after your colleague to the left and colleague to the right. Learn how to help other people around you do even better than they thought they could because you're on their team. Like really learn. And to your point, one of the shitty things about being junior is you have to be good at everything, right? And then what ends up happening over time is you start to find out where your skills are and then as you get senior, you only have to be good at like two or three things. Become a specialist, you become a specialist. And that's the advantage you get of being senior, which is we hire you to be good at this one thing. But when you're junior, with some exceptions obviously, but for the most part, you unfortunately have to be good at everything.

[Lauren Everts]

Yeah, I like that you're saying this.

[Michael Bostic]

Because, and that's school. School is like high school. I had to take every subject, right? College, I got to refine it a little, but they still made me take requirements for my major. By the time you get to the outside world, it's kind of like starting.

[Lauren Everts]

In high school over again in the lane of like. So I know I'm gonna get pushed back because I'm quote unquote an employer, but in the lane, like if I was coaching one of my siblings or my child, I have been met at times. And again, I understand the loyalty part of this and I understand everything you articulated and why people are Hesitant to give more to companies. But selfishly, if I was an individual, I was talking to my son, I would say you are going to start in these junior roles and they are gonna ask you to do things that are not quote unquote, your job. You know, have you heard that when people say, hey, that's not what I was hired for, it's not my job? I'm like, yes, but the point is you are developing this broad skill base so that eventually you will transfer that skill to a specialist position. Eventually. And that's why someone will pay you the big bucks if you start from the perspective of I only do these very specific things. You are limiting your own self growth.

[Michael Bostic]

May I?

[Simon Sinek]

You may.

[Michael Bostic]

And, and we are talking about it from perspective of an employer. So now let's talk about it as perspective of an employee. Right. We are not, I am not advocating that you follow our advice blindly.

[Lauren Everts]

Of course not.

[Michael Bostic]

Right. What I am advocating is one of my favorite things. When I remember when I was entry level, the HR interviewer would always say to me, what are you looking for? It's such a standard HR question, what are you looking for? And my answer was always the same. I said, what I'm looking for is probably akin to looking for love, but I'm looking for amendment mentor. Right. And when you take an entry level job, don't worry about the pay, don't worry about how glamorous the brand is, worry about who you're going to be working for, worry about the company, worry about their culture. And when you go through the interview process, the person who you're going to be directly reporting to, evaluate them harshly if they're the kind of person that you want to lead you. Right? And that's the other thing that I love about the Marine Corps. Only the Marine Corps does this. The army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Space Force, do not do this. Space Force, when we have it. And they're good, they're great. The guardians, the other forces do not do this. When you go to become an officer in any of those other forces, you get trained by officers. When you go to officer candidate school for the Marine Corps, you get trained by the enlisted. And I've seen it happen. It's amazing. These young officers, potential officers, are being yelled at by these enlisted, which is once they commission, those enlisted work for them. Like the hierarchy switches immediately. That drill instructor is now more junior to the most junior officer. Right? And they yell at them, you want me to follow you? You want me to follow you? You need to pick up your stuff and get this right. If you want me to follow you. And I love that construction. Whether people doing the following or evaluating the leaders. Right. They're training the leaders. And so it's the same. Which is when you're interviewing. Yes. You might make a little less money at this company. I hear you. I hear you. And the brand. It's not a famous brand. I got it. I got it. But work for the person, because you don't work for the brand and you don't work for the money. You work for a person. And if you can choose your first two, three, four jobs first. Especially the first two or three. Right. If you choose the person to work for, it'll set you up for the rest of your career. So I'm not saying just get any job and do what we're saying and go through shit and don't quit. No, no, no, no, no. You can follow all of those things if you pick the wrong person. If you made a mistake.

[Lauren Everts]

Yep. I think what I'm trying to do, and you've just done it better, is point out the blind spots of some of that process, the thought process. Right. Where it's like, yes, but. And. And just think about the repercussions as you're building a career and more importantly, a reputation.

[Simon Sinek]

Has anyone ever told you that you look like Jon Hamm?

[Michael Bostic]

No, but thank you.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, you do.

[Michael Bostic]

Look, I've had Robin Williams, which I'm not sure that made me.

[Lauren Everts]

Jon Ham is better. Yeah, I'm way better from a aesthetics perspective.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah.

[Lauren Everts]

I gotta be careful.

[Michael Bostic]

Not a talent perspective.

[Lauren Everts]

Yeah, talent perspective. I think Robin has him. Maybe not. I'm trying to.

[Michael Bostic]

Well, it's a different kind of talent. Right. It's an improv talent.

[Simon Sinek]

You do. You look like Jon Hamm when I'm talking to you.

[Michael Bostic]

Well, that's very, very kind.

[Lauren Everts]

Not that Jon Hamm's not talented, but.

[Simon Sinek]

Robert Jon Hamm is known in the industry to be packing a punch down there. So that's a great compliment.

[Lauren Everts]

I will not comment on that.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, well, I've heard many things about Jon Hamm, and Jon Hamm has a.

[Michael Bostic]

Ham, by the way. I know people who know. I don't know firsthand. I don't know Jon Hamm, and I definitely don't know him in that way. I know people who do know, and it is true.

[Simon Sinek]

You know what I do? I have this talent that I can spot stuff like that.

[Michael Bostic]

Is that a talent or just eyes up here? Eyes up here.

[Simon Sinek]

No, it's not. I Just can feel the energy of the guy.

[Michael Bostic]

And what does it feel like?

[Simon Sinek]

Jon Hamm.

[Lauren Everts]

It's one of those things, like, if Jon Hamm turns around, Go watch Jon.

[Simon Sinek]

Hamm on Mad Men. That's what it feels like.

[Lauren Everts]

If Jon Hamm turns around too fast, he could take someone out.

[Michael Bostic]

Did you see. What the hell Was it Fargo? With Jon Hamm?

[Lauren Everts]

So good.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, I haven't seen him.

[Lauren Everts]

He's really great.

[Michael Bostic]

He is astonishing.

[Simon Sinek]

I think you guys have a heart on for Jon Hamm.

[Lauren Everts]

You know what? Because now. You know what? I'm trying. If Jon Hamm ever hears this and listens to this. I really hope not now because of what you've been going off on. But Robin Williams, obviously. Incredible. Jon Hamm, incredible. Different talents.

[Michael Bostic]

I just don't think I look like Robin Williams, that's all.

[Lauren Everts]

I didn't mean to go down the rabbit hole of John Hamm. Robin Williams.

[Simon Sinek]

You look like John Hammer.

[Michael Bostic]

Now you have to unfuck it.

[Lauren Everts]

Now I feel like every.

[Michael Bostic]

Kind of.

[Lauren Everts]

Thing I've said on this show, the thing I'm most worried about is that Robin Williams will be disrespected. Jon Hamm will be disrespectful. Both of them, phenomenal talent.

[Simon Sinek]

But before you go, you have to tell us about quiet quitting. The epidemic of quiet quitting. Okay, please, let's end on that, because I think that's an important topic to discuss, okay?

[Michael Bostic]

I think it's funny. Not that it doesn't exist. I think it's. Quiet quitting is a term that senior people came up with.

[Simon Sinek]

So it's like a brand.

[Michael Bostic]

So here's what it is, right? So when somebody disengages at work, senior people go, they're quiet quitting. They're quiet quitting. I want them out of this company. I can't. All this quiet quitting, we have a quiet quitting epidemic, right? But when senior people disengage, other senior people go to them and be like, you're going through something. Something's. Why don't you take some time off? I think you're maybe burnt out. You know, maybe you're burnt out. Why don't you take a little time? So there's the same behavior happening. At the senior levels, we just call it burnout. But at the junior levels, we call it quiet quitting, you know? And of course, there are always people who are like, I'm gonna quiet quit.

[Lauren Everts]

Like, wait, I thought quiet quitting was. You just leave and don't tell anyone to never show up.

[Michael Bostic]

No, no. Quiet Quitting. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Quiet quitting is this whole time.

[Lauren Everts]

That's what I thought.

[Michael Bostic]

No, no, no. Quiet quitting is disengaging to the point where you're doing the absolute minimum. You're completely disengaged at work, and you've basically quit. You've abdicated responsibility, and you, Like I said, you kind of phone it in. I literally collect your paycheck.

[Lauren Everts]

This whole time, thought it was like somebody just doesn't show up, and you feel like you.

[Simon Sinek]

Well, you weren't present in the conversation when I was telling you about it.

[Lauren Everts]

No, but I heard.

[Simon Sinek]

It's like I was telling Michael about quiet quitting, and he wasn't being present.

[Michael Bostic]

So he needed some more meditation. What is it when.

[Lauren Everts]

When someone, like, goes on vacation and just never comes back, but doesn't tell anyone? They're never coming back?

[Michael Bostic]

I think that's just called a virtual company. Yeah, that's true.

[Lauren Everts]

That's what I have.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, so quiet quitting is like a fake brand that people.

[Michael Bostic]

I think it's an unfair brand. There are absolutely young people who say, I'm quiet quitting. I think that's the minority. I think those people, you know, of course it's happening. But when senior people accuse young people of quiet quitting, perhaps they're just burnt out. Perhaps they're in the wrong job. Because when nobody ever says somebody senior is quiet quitting doesn't exist. So I think it's a mislabeled thing that we need to have a little more. If somebody's disengaged, that means we should probably be a little more empathetic and find out what's going wrong. Because either they're going through something, or we have a culture that is not making somebody feel included.

[Lauren Everts]

Let's do some of the rapid fires.

[Simon Sinek]

Cause I think it'd be rapid fire.

[Lauren Everts]

Rapid fire. Questions?

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, let's go. Rapid fire. Ready?

[Michael Bostic]

You didn't wear a leather.

[Lauren Everts]

I know.

[Simon Sinek]

You guys are like twins over here.

[Michael Bostic]

I got the memo that I had to wear a blue shirt with a. With a brown shirt. Is that what that's called?

[Simon Sinek]

You should have taken yours off to have a little dimension.

[Lauren Everts]

I know, but then I was like.

[Michael Bostic]

But we look like we're on a team.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, my gosh.

[Lauren Everts]

And I kind of like.

[Simon Sinek]

I kind of like the outfit that we have to talk about the outfit every morning. He's worse than I am. Okay.

[Michael Bostic]

You laid out the night before on the boat.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, tell me the truth.

[Michael Bostic]

Tell the truth.

[Lauren Everts]

Tell the truth.

[Simon Sinek]

Tell the real truth.

[Michael Bostic]

Do you try on different outfits the night before?

[Lauren Everts]

Tell the truth. Truth. I don't try them on. I do. I am traveling and living out of a hotel right now, so I did have it all laid in. I'm not gonna lie. I put it together. I would just.

[Simon Sinek]

And then you know what you do? I just.

[Lauren Everts]

No, I don't talk to you about that.

[Simon Sinek]

No, this is what he does. He gets dressed slow, so I can see each iteration of it. So first he comes.

[Michael Bostic]

Why are you wearing that?

[Simon Sinek]

It's like the pants without the shirt. And his hair's done, and he wants a compliment on the hair. Then he comes out with the shirt. This is 100% true.

[Michael Bostic]

You have photographs of outfits in the closet.

[Simon Sinek]

Look at him this morning. I'm gonna show you a picture of him this morning.

[Michael Bostic]

What were you doing this morning?

[Simon Sinek]

You were showing me how it looked.

[Michael Bostic]

Why'd you take a picture of him.

[Simon Sinek]

Without the thing on?

[Lauren Everts]

No, but I'm not sitting in my. I was having breakfast.

[Simon Sinek]

No, but he's showing me how it looks without this on.

[Michael Bostic]

You look very Wall street in that picture.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, he thinks so, too.

[Lauren Everts]

That's a rare shot, too. I was like, that's a rare.

[Simon Sinek]

And then he comes out. The grand finale is the. This with the brief. He does it every day.

[Michael Bostic]

Briefcase.

[Lauren Everts]

It's not a briefcase.

[Simon Sinek]

He's very.

[Michael Bostic]

Satchel. It's a big.

[Lauren Everts]

It's a big duffel. Briefcase is like the hard satchel.

[Michael Bostic]

Satchel is a soft briefcase.

[Simon Sinek]

Careful. You don't want to be quiet. Quit this relationship.

[Michael Bostic]

It looks like a briefcase has rigidity to it, and a satchel has less rigidity to it, but they're the same. Not necessarily.

[Lauren Everts]

So it's not a. It can't be. A briefcase has a shoulder strap.

[Simon Sinek]

Rapid Fire Questions. Favorite book you recommend? Not your own.

[Michael Bostic]

I don't read much.

[Simon Sinek]

That's so interesting.

[Michael Bostic]

I know.

[Simon Sinek]

That is. I think that's interesting.

[Michael Bostic]

I carried a lot of shame with it. About it for a lot of years, and I lied about it for a lot of years. But I have pretty bad adhd. And so reading a book is very. I've started a lot of books. I finished very few.

[Simon Sinek]

I used to think you only have so much capacity towards books. Like, you're. You're writing all the time. And maybe that's your form of, like, learning is writing all the time. You are.

[Michael Bostic]

I would have written more books if I've been writing all the time.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay. I like the Honest.

[Michael Bostic]

Three books in 15 years.

[Simon Sinek]

There's nothing worse when someone comes on the podcast and recommend a book that.

[Michael Bostic]

They'Ve never read, I mean, I've only read one other than my own. I've only read one book, cover to cover.

[Simon Sinek]

What's that?

[Michael Bostic]

The Da Vinci Code.

[Simon Sinek]

Is it good?

[Michael Bostic]

I like that book. It's good.

[Simon Sinek]

Wait, do I need to read that?

[Michael Bostic]

I'll tell you why it's good.

[Lauren Everts]

You'll like that book.

[Michael Bostic]

It's written for people like me, which is it's very short sections, they're all really compelling that make you want to keep reading. It's the only book in my life. I was at a conference and I like every time they had a break, I went up to my hotel room and read. Like, I've never done that in my life.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, I got to read it.

[Michael Bostic]

So it's good.

[Simon Sinek]

What? Out of all your books, which one would you recommend? The first.

[Michael Bostic]

Which one people Start with.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, I mean, start with why?

[Michael Bostic]

Start with why is a very good place. They're not. They are. They do build upon each other. But you can read them independently. They're not, it's not a serial. I mean, start with why is a beautiful, elegant little idea. It's a great place to start. But the Infinite Game is some of the best thinking I've ever done. Very, very proud of it.

[Simon Sinek]

I need to buy that one.

[Michael Bostic]

And together is better. You can read on the toilet. It's very short.

[Simon Sinek]

Read on the toilet.

[Michael Bostic]

Like it's got one sentence per page.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay.

[Michael Bostic]

It's a great. It's a great. Together is better is the best one.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay. Weirdest habit.

[Michael Bostic]

I hate any kind of open cabinet.

[Simon Sinek]

So do I.

[Michael Bostic]

So do I. I open a cabinet, take something out, close it, open it up, take. And like if I go to other people's homes and their cabinets are open in their kitchen, would people just leave cabinets open? Which should be a crime.

[Lauren Everts]

Are you gonna sit here straight faced and say you hate that habit?

[Simon Sinek]

I, I, I don't like open cabinets.

[Michael Bostic]

I go into other people's homes and close the cabinets because it just makes me uncomfortable.

[Simon Sinek]

I agree.

[Michael Bostic]

Yeah, that's a, so that's a strange habit.

[Lauren Everts]

I'm gonna play this off as if you hate open cabinets.

[Simon Sinek]

What do you mean I don't like, I like everything organized.

[Michael Bostic]

I don't, it's not an organized thing. I think it's visual.

[Lauren Everts]

I know you don't like having to use your wrist to close. I know there's open cabinets everywhere in your tray. Like you, it's like a wake of open cabinets.

[Simon Sinek]

No, no, no. You're reading me wrong. I. I like to mess everything up to clean it up. And then I like the cabinets closed.

[Lauren Everts]

But it stays open for how long? Many times.

[Michael Bostic]

What's the longest amount of time you've left a cabinet open? 24 hours a week.

[Lauren Everts]

I actually hate to open cabinets.

[Simon Sinek]

The most surprising.

[Michael Bostic]

For me, it's minutes.

[Simon Sinek]

Come over to my house. The most surprising thing about success.

[Michael Bostic]

The most surprising thing about success?

[Simon Sinek]

Yes.

[Michael Bostic]

Well, you know, I think the most surprising thing about success. Such a good question. I'm trying to think of something I was surprised by. I think people think that as you gain success, you work less. And I guess that depends on money. I guess some people could, but I found myself wanting to work more.

[Simon Sinek]

Maybe because you find more purpose as you go on in your work.

[Michael Bostic]

And it's not because if I work harder, I'll get more. It wasn't like that. It was just like I found myself having opportunity to do more things that interested me.

[Simon Sinek]

I think that's a great answer. I will say, interviewing a lot of people, you're very thoughtful. On a mic, you can tell you're thoughtful about what you say. It's very impressive.

[Michael Bostic]

Thank you.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, I like this interview a lot, Simon. Where can everyone follow you and find you?

[Michael Bostic]

Well, the usual places. The Instagram, the TikTok, the LinkedIn, the Facebook, the Interwebs.

[Simon Sinek]

Love it. And we're gonna go record a TikTok right now.

[Lauren Everts]

He's so excited. He can't wait.

[Simon Sinek]

He's on the Internet.

[Lauren Everts]

He told me. He said that's what he's waiting for. For the very.

[Simon Sinek]

Let go see if the cabinets are open. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

[Michael Bostic]

Thanks for having me.

[Lauren Everts]

Simon.

[Michael Bostic]

Thank you for coming on the show.

[Lauren Everts]

Thank you.