Good Life Project - Simon Sinek: Serve Those Who Serve Others [Best of]

Episode Date: December 26, 2016

On September 17, 2009, Simon Sinek stepped onto a small stage for a local gathering...and proceeded to blow away the world.The event was TEDx Puget Sound. He had no slides, no fancy presentation. Just an idea and an easel. For 18 minutes, he spoke about an awakening. Something he called "the golden circle," and the need to know your "why." The audience was captivated.But that's just the beginning...The event was filmed and posted to Youtube 11 days later. So powerful was Simon's presentation and idea that it was quickly pulled onto the main TED site. There it exploded into the world's consciousness, becoming one of the most-watched TED talks of all-time with nearly 30 million views. A book called Start With Why soon followed, becoming an instant hit.Funny thing is, Simon doesn't really care about all of that. What he does care about is the Idea. The opportunity to inspire people to wake up to the possibility in their own lives. The ability to serve from a deeper, more humble yet powerful place. And to act.Simon's transformative ideas continued to evolve with his book, Leaders Eat Last. This week's episode features a "Best Of" conversation with Simon, where we explore his remarkable journey, his extraordinary lens on the world (though he'll likely tell you it's anything but) and his deep desire both inspire and to serve those who serve others.Simon is also a master storyteller. As our conversation unfolds, he shares a stunningly powerful story about a trip to Afghanistan with the military that went bad, and how it became a flight he'll remember for the rest of his life. By the time he was done, I was near tears and had trouble speaking, let alone continuing the conversation. Listen all the way through, it will be so worth the investment of time and energy.Some quick quotes from the conversation:"Great leaders see money as fuel, not a destination.""Serve those who serve others.""Never sacrifice the people to save the numbers, sacrifice the numbers to save the people.""The responsibility of the leader is to look after the sons and the daughters of the parents who have given us their children to help us build our companies with the same love and tenderness and care that their parents gave to them."We first aired this conversation in October 2013. I'm so excited to share this "Best Of" episode with you now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

That is the responsibility of the leader, to look after the sons and the daughters of the parents who have given us their children to help us build our companies with the same love and tenderness and care that their parents gave to them. We yell at our kids, yet we care desperately about our children. We have fights with our spouses, we have fights with our friends, but we never abandon them. That's what I mean. Hey there, it's Jonathan. And my guest today is Simon Sinek. Now, today's episode was actually filmed a little while back and aired when we were creating and producing our broadcast series with Simon. The response to that episode, it's actually been viewed more than 250,000 times

at this point. It was incredibly popular, incredibly deep. And as we move into the end of this year, I always like to take the last couple of weeks of every year and bring back some of the most powerful conversations from our archives. And that's exactly what we're doing with this conversation with Simon. We go really deep into some powerful topics that were relevant at the time of the conversation and in today's world are so much more relevant and so much more deeply important to have. And again, this has been one of our most popular episodes ever when we filmed it. And I'm really excited to share it with you in audio on the podcast now.

Simon is a bestselling author and speaker and has one of the top TED Talks ever. And it's something that this conversation is going to leave you inspired. It's also going to leave you deeply thinking about who you are, what matters, and the way you live your life. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Good to be hanging out with you today. And actually, I think it's kind of an interesting place to start. We were hanging out off camera before this, and we were actually in a conversation with someone else. You made a really interesting comment, which was, and I said something like, well, you know,

like, you've got tremendous answers because you're a brilliant person. You had a really interesting response to that. Yeah, I mean, I don't see myself that way. My goal is to understand the things that are being said to me, and my goal is to understand concepts that I'm exposed to. And I'm not so great with highly complex ideas. And so I work hard to simplify them. So I understand, you know, I learned that the hard way. I think one of the biggest lessons I learned was that I don't have to know all the answers. And I don't have to pretend that I do. And I think very often for fear of being humiliated or for the false belief that we have to sort of hold ourselves to the standard that, you know, somebody may see us something if you're the boss of the company or whatever, that you have to know everything and that we pretend that we do

is to maintain our status. But the reality is that if you claim to understand things, then people assume you understand and then they go on without you assuming you understood. And so I find myself becoming, you know, much like a little kid, kid you know asking tons and tons and tons of questions just so that i can understand and repeating it back and there's as simple terms as i can figure out to say is this right again it's it's then i understand it i i'm a great believer that if you speak like a scientist then only scientists will understand you you're right but if you speak like a truck driver then both scientists will understand you. But if you speak like a truck driver, then both scientists and truck drivers will understand you. And so how can you take every concept that's brought to you and repeat it back as like a truck driver?

It's so fascinating. So we had in a previous conversation, I spent some time with Brene Brown. And so she's a professor, a researcher. And she brought up something to me that I wasn't entirely aware of, which is that in the world of academia, if you write in a way that's understandable to a layperson, you're essentially lionized in that world. And you're viewed as, you know, like dumbing things down. It's almost like a bastardization of the work. You're not good enough and it's not good enough anymore. Which is, I mean, to me, it's sad.

Which is why there are no or very few academic rock stars. Because we don't understand them. Right. They have amazing concepts. I'm sure they could change the world if only anybody understood them. So that's the whole thing. I mean, if you're doing all this tremendous work. For each other.

Right. Yeah. You know, and she brought up some quote like, you know, like the average research reporter, the average thing that's published in a journal, professional journal is read like eight times or something like that. And seven of the eight are from people to see if they're cited in it. That's funny. I mean, what's fascinating about this though, is the notion that people are so terrified to ask questions to the extent that they'll actually pretend that they know. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you a funny story. It's a true story.

I was challenged and you should do the same challenge. It's remarkably difficult to tell zero lies for 48 hours. Zero. I mean, nothing. No little white lies, nothing. And it is remarkable how often we say little lies simply to avoid conflict or to avoid humiliation. You know, you're eating something in a restaurant.

It's not that good. The waiter says, how is it? You go, yeah, it's good. That was a lie. You know, like there's little lies, you know? And so try for 48 hours to tell zero. It doesn't mean you have to be mean, you know, there's nowhere that it says being honest means being mean. It just means telling the truth. And so I said, all right, I'll give this a try. And total coincidence, I had a meeting in Washington with the speechwriter for the majority whipper. I think it was something

like that. And, you know, we go into this, this room in the Capitol with these vaulted ceilings and it was gorgeous. And we sit down and the first question she asks me is how much research have you done on the Congress? Now on any other day, I would have gone a little little. That's what we say, to avoid humiliation. Right, yeah. Have you heard of this movie? Yeah, I think so. It sounds vaguely familiar. Yeah.

Have you done any research? A little, right? But of course, I took this oath that I was going to tell no lies, not even to avoid humiliation. And so I said, none. And she said, okay, let me tell you then. And that's when I realized that when we lie to save face for ourselves, we're actually denying ourselves the opportunity to get some information. She would have not told me what I needed to know,

assuming that I had researched it myself because I told her. But by telling her none, she started from the starting point for me and explained everything to me. Now, it doesn't always go that way. Sometimes you do get humiliated, you know. But the opportunity to learn simply by explaining or saying and willing to admit you don't know is monumentally huge. And I think for leaders, it goes even beyond that. The worst leaders are the ones that think they have to know as much or

more than the people who work with them. The best leaders are the ones who know that their employees know a hell of a lot more than they do and are willing to admit it and express the value they have for their people. So, I mean, what is it that, what is it that stops us from doing it? Is it an ingrained notion that if we admit that we don't know everything, that then that's perceived as weakness? What do you think it is? Yeah, I mean, it's a survival instinct, right? I mean, you know, our mammalian brain is the same as all social mammals, all mammals. And if you think about sort of a herd of gazelle, right? The ones that are on the outside are the weak ones and the old ones. Well, for good reason. It's because when

the lion attacks, he's going to eat one of them, right? They could have evolved to keep the weak ones in the middle, right? But then all the strong ones would get eaten and eventually the species would die off. It's not a good system for survival. And so we have the same fear of being ostracized or isolated or not accepted. You know, we're desperately afraid of not feeling like we belong. And the reason is, is when we're on the outskirts and on the edges, we literally feel like we're being left out for the lions. And so I think very often we say things or ingratiate ourselves or posture, not because we're bad people and not because, but we want the group to see us as valuable and worthy of being kept in and belonging and not sort of, you

know, turned away from and pushed to the sides, which is very scary for human beings, which is very scary for social animals. Yeah. It really is much more primal. Yeah. It's all primal. I mean, the human animal hasn't changed in 50,000 years. The condition has, but fundamentally we have.

The surroundings have. And this whole sort of industrialization thing, living in surplus was only 10,000 years ago when we started farming. So for 40,000 years, we're basically hunters and gatherers, and it's only the past 10,000. So only a fifth of our entire existence we've had to learn to deal with this. But the human animal fundamentally hasn't changed at all. So it's all primal.

We're reacting to our environment. It's so funny, too, because I think this. But the human animal fundamentally hasn't changed at all. So it's all primal. We're reacting to our own environment. It's so funny, too, because I think people look at the human animal and say, oh, we've come so far. We're fundamentally so changed. It's interesting for me also as somebody who studied marketing and influence and all these things. And the seminal book in the world of influence was written 30 years ago, 32 years ago now by Robert Cialdini.

And people are like, oh, well, I want to see the new stuff. And you're like, all the new stuff is just riffing on that because that was just something which kind of like put together observations about how we are and how we've been for thousands and thousands of years. The only thing we can change is the packaging. I mean, my ideas are not new either. I mean, I don't think I've ever said anything that hasn't been said before. You know, the concept of why is thousands of years old, having purpose, not so new, you know.

But it was presented in a way that makes those who I believe needed to hear it, hear it. You know, it wasn't just preaching to the converted anymore. There's a change of language, you know, and it was repackaged for the times. You know, the concept is old. I want to go into that a little bit, because it's funny, like, as we talked about, either this week or last week, I wrote something on my blog about like, who am I? A question that gets asked to me, I'm sure gets asked to you a lot of times, like, who am I to actually bring this thing, you know, to life to this book, this piece of art, this company, this business, whatever it is. And like you said, there's very little that is genuinely, genuinely new.

There's some technology. There's some, if you get into really hardcore science and biochem and stuff like that, there's some stuff that, you know, is truly relevant. There's innovation. It was produced by teams, not by individuals. But so much of what's out there, it's not, it's your voice, it's your energy, it's your lens that actually makes it hit home with somebody else. And I think the concern a lot of people say is, well, that's your voice. It's your energy. It's your lens that actually makes it hit home with somebody else. And I think the concern a lot of people say is, well, that's not enough.

You know, but. Then don't buy it. Right. And then if you put it out there, you know, if 10 people that heard this thing 100 times before and it never landed with them, hear it and it lands with them. And one of those 10 people then takes an action in their life that makes a profound difference in their life or somebody else's life because of that. You know, that's enough.

One's not enough. You know. But I mean, that one person could then turn around and influence so many. To me. Yeah. I mean, I smile when I hear, you very often hear this, public speakers. They stand on a stage in front of 500 people and they say, if I can help just one of you, then I've done my job. I'm like, one?

One? That's your standard? You're going to run into 500 and one? Right. So one out of five isn't a really good value. You left your family for a night? You're going to have jet lag for one? No. You know it's like and that's the reason I think that's a low standard is because that means the way you're communicating it is in a manner in which only one out of five hundred understood it. You know and even if you get ten percent you know, law of averages says 10% will simply get what you're trying to say. I think the opportunity is to communicate in a manner where a lot more than 10%,

a lot more than sort of the standard deviations that you'll get people to go, you know, the opportunity to get somebody to come up to you afterwards and say, you know, I'm cynical with people like you and don't really like things that people like you say. And you converted me. Like that's the opportunity. That one in the audience was already with you anyway, before you started speaking. So I think again, the burden goes on to the speaker to communicate the manner that is

resonant and relevant with the audience. I can't stand it when speakers ask the audience to please turn off their cell phones and close their laptops. I'm like, if you can't hold their attention, let them do something else. Let them play backgammon, you know? The standard, the burden is on the presenter of the ideas, to present their ideas in a manner in which people can understand and find interesting

and compelling and resonant. And if that happens, hopefully they'll build upon those ideas and make them even better. Yeah, I love that. I completely agree. Let's dive deeper into that though. You're somebody who spends a huge amount of time traveling and speaking to groups large and small. So this is something that you have such intimate and deep knowledge of. So in your experience, what do you have to do to go to that place where many light bulbs in a room light up.

Sure. I think there's a mentality that you have to bring to the presenting of ideas or the presenting of anything, product, it doesn't matter, is fundamentally to have an attitude of giving. Every time I, I mean, when I present, I cheat. I only talk about things I care about. You know, people say, how do you speak for an hour, hour and a half without notes? It's not hard because I care about what I'm talking about. People say, how do you speak for an hour, hour and a half without notes? It's not hard

because I care about what I'm talking about. You go out for dinner with people and they talk about their kids for two hours. It's like enough with the kids already. But the reason they can talk for hours and hours and hours and hours about their kids is because they love their kids. They're passionate about their kids and they know the stories. They remember the stories. They remember the funny little gestures. Well, if you care about something deeply, every single one of us has a weird memory for things that we're interested in. You know, if you're interested in comic books, I promise you, you have a weird memory for, you know,

things that happen in that space. And so I only talk about things I care about. That's cheating, right? So why is that cheating and not the norm? Well, fair enough. It's cheating because it's not the norm, right? Right, I guess. That's number one. And number two, I don't want anything from anybody. That's, I think,

a very important... I think it's the most important thing that anybody who presents ideas has to have. And that includes speaking on a large stage as much as it does a one-on-one sales meeting, which is... The strange thing is, is even in a sales meeting, the goal is not to want anything from them. Most people show up to want something. I want your business. I want you to follow me. I want your approval. I want you to validate me, whatever the disposition is, to put that aside and say, I'm here to give. I'm here to share. And almost every time without fail, before I present, I will literally say out loud to myself to remind myself because I'm fallible, you know, and I forget, I remind myself you're here to give. And so I don't put up my Twitter handle or please follow me on Facebook because I don't want

anything from anybody. I'm here to share and I'm here to give. And if they like it, that's great. I want them to take it and use it as their own. And if they don't like it, I'm okay with that too. Give me constructive feedback so that maybe I can make it clearer the next time. But it's remarkable to me how many people show up to present an idea or in a sales meeting and what they want is the sale. I mean, it's terrible. We call them salesmen and sales managers. I mean, it's actually incorrect.

It sets up the wrong standard. Go get the sale. It's very, very selfish. As opposed to go give someone an opportunity or go help someone find what they're looking for. It may or may not include our product. It may or may not include our service, but help them. And it's a profoundly trust-building mechanism.

And people are very patient with mistakes. I can make a mess on a stage and people are okay with it because they know fundamentally I'm there to give. And so I can mess things up. If I were there to take and everything had to be pristine and perfect, if I screwed anything up, it would be all over. So if you're setting up the pitch at the end. Because you create a safe space, right?

As opposed to creating an us and them, a me and you. And so I work very hard to always have that as an attitude, to show up to give. What about wanting something for them? What do you mean wanting something for them? Instead of from them, for them. Like going in with an intention or a desire to actually create something for them or have them in some way take this experience and act on it in some way that will benefit them moving forward. I don't know. I find that it's a bit presumptuous.

There are a room of strangers. I want things for my sister. I want things for my niece and my nephew. I want things for my parents. I want things for my niece and my nephew. I want things for my parents. I want things for my close friends. But for strangers, I mean, I'd be happy if they found stuff of value. I think it's presumptuous to come and say, I want this for you. I don't even know you.

You know, you may be a horrible person who abuses your children. I want you to go to jail, you know? So, I don't know. I think it's a little presumptuous to want for strangers. You know, it's like you see this very often on websites. I can help you, it says. You don't know me.

I can tell you what I've done for myself. I can tell you what others, I've done for others, but I don't know. To want help, I want this for you as a statement. I want to do good in the world, but I want this for you. I don't know. It creates a really kind of weird dynamic.

I'm curious too. So let's say we're having this conversation because I'm sure that you've had a similar conversation when you go in and talk to leaders and organizations where they're saying, like, you know, how can we get our salespeople to buy into this? But even the leader is probably saying, well, then, how do we make money?

If the whole goal of, like, training our salespeople to buy into this but even the leaders probably saying well then how do we make money if the whole goal of like training our salespeople is let's solve and serve and whatever comes of it comes of it and fundamentally i'm here because i want to give you know i want to offer value with no expectation of from in that dynamic has as an organization how do we survive where's money come back does it just come back? So what does that conversation go like when you come into an organization? If you want to do things solely for money and instant success, you will find strategies to do that. Fairly confident they don't last. I mean, even if it's 10 or 20 years, it will collapse.

You know, there are unstable systems. And the reason there are unstable systems is because the people involved don't care, right? The role of leadership is to ensure that the people inside their company feel so safe, you know, that they're willing to sacrifice everything for each other and even the company, right? Knowing full well that the leader cares about them desperately, right? And if you think about the world, right? The world is fraught with danger. I mean, if we go back to caveman times, that danger may have been, you know, a saber-toothed tiger, the weather, lack of resources, all of these things with no conscience trying to kill you, want you dead, right? Nothing personal. And so we evolved into these social animals that realize that if we live in trusting, belonging communities where there's shared values and, you know and shared beliefs and trust emerges,

then we can coordinate and help each other and better face the dangers outside. If we don't trust each other, then it's not going to go well for anybody, right? This is the value of group living because we can fall asleep at night and trust that someone else will watch for danger. If I don't trust you, I'm not going to fall asleep at night. It's not very good. In modern day and age, the same thing exists. You just translate it into a business environment. So in the business environment, the outside, there is fraud with danger. There's the ups and downs of the economy, which are unpredictable. There's your competition that's trying to kill you. And if they're not trying to put you out

of business, they definitely want to steal your business or prevent you from getting more. There's all kinds of financial pressures and other emerging technologies that could render your product useless overnight, right, that you didn't see coming. All of these things, nothing personal, trying to destroy your survival. And so that's a constant, unchangeable. I mean, the only variable is the culture inside the organization. It's the group of people.

And so if a leader offers to protect, if a leader offers a sense of belonging, if a leader offers to manage the set of values and ensure that we only let people in who believe what we believe and never, ever, ever, ever sacrifice the people to save the numbers, but rather sacrifice the numbers to save the people, what starts to happen is people learn to trust. They learn to love each other and care about each other, would sacrifice themselves for each other and the organization, and more importantly, are better equipped to face the dangers outside. And it's in these conditions that innovation happens. There's no one on the planet that would offer a big risky idea with a huge chance of failure

if the opportunity for getting laid off is what greets them if the money isn't there. And what you find is the leaders of organizations that run like this have a very different view of money. In bad, unhealthy cultures, money is the goal. Money is just a number. It's a result. The great organizations and the great leaders see money as a tool to further fuel whatever it is they're building. And so, of course, they want financial success because the more money they have, the more they can protect their people. The more that they can ensure that there'll be no layoffs and hard times because we've got lots of money.

The more that we can invest in R&D and try to take these amazing ideas that you have and invent the future. They see money as fuel, not as a destination. And so there's nothing wrong with making lots of money. The question is, what is it to you? Is it the place to get to? Is it the thing that puts the fuel in the organization? But at the end of the day, it's how safe people feel when they go to work. And most don't. This is what work-life imbalance is. It has nothing to do with the number of hours we work. It has nothing to do with how much yoga we do. The work-life imbalance is,

and they know this, by the way, people who work late, it has no negative impact on their kids, for example. But what does have a negative impact on children is people who come home and don't love their jobs, come home angry or upset or afraid. That has a negative impact on the raising of your children. The work-life imbalance is that I feel safe at home, but I don't feel safe at work. The imbalance. And we won't have balance in our lives until we I feel safe at home, but I don't feel safe at work. The imbalance. And we won't have balance in our lives until we can feel safe in the place we live and feel safe in the place we work. That's the responsibility of leadership. Yeah.

It's so powerful, but it's so, like you said, so rarely offered in that way. There's a lot of bad leaders. Yeah. There's leaders that are very, very bad that we, for some reason, have raised, put them on pedestals in our society and called them good. Jack Welch is somebody we admire as a good leader. He's a man who's written five leadership books. He's put his own face on all of them. Yet he talks about the people. He's a man who talks about the people, and yet he pioneered business philosophies that you lay off, you fire the bottom 10 or 20% of your company whose work doesn't directly

contribute to the stock value that year. These are not fundamentally good ideas. And these are not fundamentally good ideas that build companies to last. GE was built to make a lot of money in the time of great prosperity, but then they needed a bailout during the economic crisis. Strong companies, the people would have rallied to save the company. They wouldn't have to go and ask for a bailout. It wasn't Jeff Immelt. It was the weak foundation that Jack Welch built. And yet we hail him as a great leader.

I don't see it. I don't see it. Great leaders are guys like Jim Senegal from Costco. There's a great leader. There's a guy who's criticized constantly by Wall Street for giving his employees too much and refusing to cut their salaries. On average, a Costco employee made more than double the salary of a Walmart employee. I mean, you have these fast food workers who are asking for double their salaries.

They're asking to be the equivalent of what a Costco minimum wage employee would have made. And if you look at the stock value of GE versus the stock value of Costco, for example, so a company that believes in looking after people above all versus a company that believes in looking after a shareholder above all and protecting the numbers above all, what you'll see is you can't start at 1981 when Welch took over. You start in about 1986 when Costco went public, right? So Jack Welch had been in December of 1985. Jack Welch had been in office about four years. And you look at the stock values. And GE looks like this, right? And, yeah, you could have made 4,000% of your money.

You could have, but it's literally, it's a roller coaster. It's like this, right? And this is what Costco looks like. Now, if you compare their stock values today versus investing in, if you started investing in 1986 when Costco went public in both companies, today, you would have made 600% on your money in GE. You would have made 600% on your money in GE. You would have made 600% on your money if you invested in the S&P, and you would have made 1,200% on your money in Costco. So you tell me which is better, shareholder or not, looking after your people or not.

Or you can go ride a roller coaster and maybe you'll make 4,000%. You know? Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

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charge time and actual results will vary. I mean, it's such an incredibly powerful concept. And you talk about it in the context of business leadership. What about the context of life, of personal leadership, of the way that you actually treat family, friends, people around you? I think we innately, well, that's just the way that you're supposed to do it with your family, with your close friends. You create a safe space, you protect them, you do everything for each other because that's what you do with people you generally care about. But for some reason,

you check that at the door when it comes to the organization or the way that you, you know, the work that you do or the, you know, the cultures that you build. It's a little bizarre. You know, there's a paradox in being human, which is we are fundamentally individuals and members of groups at all times. And so people who say, no, you have to look after others first, but that's self-destructive behavior. And people say, no, you have to look after yourself first, but that's self-destructive behavior. It's a paradox. This is why sometimes we have moral conflict. Do I protect myself first or protect others? You have to do both. This is the problem. But at the end of the day, the responsibility we have is to the people we know. You know, and so though it is the responsibility of leadership to create an environment in

which trust is more likely to blossom, if we work in organizations in which trust is a rare commodity, you know, where we constantly fear layoffs or that if we fail, we'll get in trouble or, you know, things like that. We can't change the direction of that company, and we're not in charge. But we do have total control over how we treat the people who sit to the left of us and sit to the right of us. You know the movie 300, The Spartans, right? So in Sparta, it was the shield that was more valuable than the spear. Now, this was the most fierce fighting force that had ever lived, at least up until that time. And yet it was not their spheres that made them strong. It was their shield. And mothers

would tell their children when they were young, you better bring your shield home. And if you don't, you better come home on it. Because if you lost your shield, the phalanx was weakened because you could no longer protect the person to the left of you and the person to the right of you. And everyone had the responsibility to protect the person to the left and to the right. We have the same responsibility. This is what makes us strong. Not our intelligence, not the spears, not all of that, but our willingness to put ourselves right in harm's way for the guy to the left and the guy to the right. And so when you come to work, it's the person who sits next to you. When you get a cup of coffee, get one for them as well. If they're struggling with something, don't say, do you need my help? Just go help them.

It's little, little things. And if we preoccupy ourselves and obsess about ensuring that the people with whom we work, the ones we know their names, not the people we don't know in the company, the ones we work with, whether we work in the same department or not, but we know them, we see them, we know their names, right? If we obsess about ensuring that they feel safe at work, that they love coming to work, that they feel that someone is watching their backs, the remarkable thing is they will do it for you. Because that's what human beings do. When someone does something nice for us, we do something nice back. It's what we do. It's oxytocin. When somebody does something nice for us, the chemical is released that actually makes us more generous. I went to buy a cookie late night at Insomnia Cookie. I've never

been there before. I thought, I'll give it a try. I went in there and I said, I'd like one cookie, please. I just wanted to try it. Now, I don't think people usually buy one. I think they usually buy like a dozen or something. She looks at me and goes, one? I said, just one. She says, one. I said, one cookie, please. She hands me one cookie and I said,? I said, just one. She says, one. I said, one cookie, please. So she hands me one cookie. And I said, how much do I owe you? She says, don't worry. It's on me.

I said, no, no, come on. She goes, it's on me. And I put a $5 tip in the jar. I paid $5 for a cookie that cost $2.50. And by the way, I think I got great value, right? And that's what we do. That's what we do when someone is nice to us. We sort of kind of help ourselves we want to be nice back yeah but when somebody says you only gave me 225 the cookies

230 you know like that you like or that penny we've all had the experience we're one penny short right and you have to break a dollar bill for the extra penny and they look at you go right you know rules are rules right now what that tells me is not about the person that doesn't tell me anything about the disposition of that human, what that tells me is not about the person. That doesn't tell me anything about the disposition of that human being. What that tells me is they work in an environment. That's the culture. That if they make mistakes, they get in trouble as opposed to feeling safe and protected, which would make them want to make the customer feel safe and protected.

That's how it works. It's all very paleolithic. Yeah. And we've just moved so far away from that. But I mean, other than you mentioned Costco, which is a huge company which is a phenomenal example of this could you think of like five major organizations that sort of like work with this around this ideal the number is few i think that's why we feel a sense of imbalance a lot of us are looking for work-life balance is because the number is few there are some private companies that are pretty amazing at it because you don't have to have the feel a sense of imbalance. A lot of us are looking for work-life balance because the number is few.

There are some private companies that are pretty amazing at it because you don't have to have the courage to stand up to... Think about this concept of shareholder value, right? Well, that's what I was saying. Public company, your main charge is maximize shareholder value. Yeah, but that's incorrect, right? Shareholder value, we just gave a real example of Costco versus General Electric, right? And you got better value over time with Costco, right? I mean, that's like saying I treat my kids based on what my neighbor said. You know, like, that's what you're saying is like, I will treat my employees based on what someone who doesn't really like some analyst, who's a fair weather fan and doesn't really care about me at all. What he says is how I will determine how I treat the people who've given me and

sacrificed their lives for me. That's the standard. It's backwards. In the military, they give medals to people who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may gain. In business, we give bonuses to people who are willing to sacrifice others so that we may gain. It's backwards. Yeah. I think about a conversation I had with Nancy Duarte. You know, Duarte in Silicon Valley. And she calls her firm La Familia Duarte. And she truly looks at everybody. She's like, I'm the mama bear here.

And my sole job is to care for everybody here. That is correct. And she's like, I look at the parking lot and I see those companies. And when I think about it, she's like, when I think about growing the company, what I think about is how can I take care of them all? You know, how can I take everybody who's given their lives to this thing and make sure that their family's okay and they can pay their mortgage and that they're happy with what they're doing?

And what's interesting is when I had this conversation with Nancy, she was at a point where, I mean, the firm is a phenomenal firm, you know, the top presentation design firm in the world, storytelling. And they were moving into a window of time where they're around 100 employees. And I said to her, are you concerned at all about the whole sort of Dunbar's number as you're approaching 150? Because they're growing, they're going to hit it soon. And what that may do to the culture as you hit that point where it becomes harder and harder to keep those close ties.

Yeah, Dunbar's number is real. And the reason, again, is paleolithic. We used to live in societies of between 100 and 150. And so we've evolved to manage in societies of about 100, 150. Scale is a problem for us. There's a large tech company in San Francisco that has grown very fast and done very well. Very big. I promise you, you know them. You know, their office was open plan when they were growing. And it was remarkable because there's a wonderful exchange of communication. And as they grew very big, they thought it was the open plan that allowed for the spread of communication. So they kept this wonderful open plan. But then what they would concede in private is that communication went down.

And it's because when you don't know everybody, you don't go ask for help. And you don't ask someone to turn their radio down and you don't admit you need something because you no longer have that familial sort of experience. There's something to be said for keeping divisions small, maxing out 150. And then, I mean, you know the story about Gore-Tex. When that company was growing, Bill Gore realized as it was growing, he would walk into the factory and he didn't know everybody. And that concerned him.

And so even though on paper, it would be ridiculous to build another factory to do the same thing, even though it's in hardly maxed out capacity, he did just that. He would build, once the factory reached about 150 people, he'd build an entirely new factory to do the same thing. And at the end of the day, it was much, much better because better exchange of information, people kept the machines running better, it was better preventative maintenance

because we were in it together. It's no longer us and them. It's no longer management and us. So, no, scale is a very serious challenge for the human animal. Yeah, it's funny. I remember at one point, I used to own a yoga center in manhattan and house kitchen it came a time where i was more and more hands off with it

you know we had managers who would hire different people for different jobs and it came a time where i walked into the studio one afternoon and the person sitting by the front desk said are you here for class yeah and it was a powerful moment for me something's wrong there yeah something and this wasn't even a huge organization. This was a small local business. But what it made me aware of is how quickly that can happen if you're not really attuned to and creating that container that says, you know, like, we're in this together.

And fundamentally, like, and really elevating the notion of connection within it and concern for each other. It was really interesting, the example that you gave. If you see somebody next to you who needs help, don't say, do you need help? Just help them. It seems so small, but that's a really big shift. Like pushing the open button when someone's running for the elevator. That one's a big one too. Like we don't do that either. You know, it's like, there's a lot of little things we can do for people that we don't do, you know. Or very often we start with a disposition of anger or that they've done something wrong as opposed to empathy.

And this is up the chain of command and down the chain of command. We think our bosses are idiots and they think we're idiots as opposed to saying maybe he's having a bad day and he had a fight with his wife or maybe she's having a problem at home with her kids. You know, you okay? Because this is not the way i know you're a lot better than what you okay like that empathy there's a wonderful guy who's become a dear friend by the

name of bob chapman who is ceo of a company called barry way miller in based in st louis about a 1.6 billion dollar manufacturing company good old-fashioned blue color american manufacturing bob had this realization about the responsibility of a CEO when he was sitting at a wedding. He was sitting in the pews with his wife and he's watching the ceremony and the father walks the bride down the aisle and ceremonially gives his daughter away to someone else. His precious child that he's invested everything and to give his own life to see that she grows up strong and healthy. He's literally giving her away. And ceremonially, you know, and legally, very often someone will take the name of the new tribe of the person who's supposed to protect and the husband is supposed to protect.

And Bob realizes, he sat there and realized that every single person in his company is someone's son and someone's daughter. And every single parent has given him their child with the expectation that he will look after them as much as they looked after their own children. That is the responsibility of the leader. To look after the sons and the daughters of the parents who have given us their children to help us build our companies with the same love and tenderness and care that their parents gave to them. That doesn't mean we can't discipline them. Of course we can. We discipline our own children. It doesn't mean it's all like, yeah, it's not about artifice.

It's about, you know, we yell at our kids, yet we care desperately about our children. You know, we have fights with our spouses. We have fights with our friends, but we never abandon them. That's what I mean. It's about the feeling of safety. It doesn't mean that, you know, it's not all, you know, rainbows and unicorns necessarily. And it's so powerful to have that awakening in a personal context and immediately be able to transfer that, oh, this is really what I'm doing. Well, he understands that your company isn't like a family. It is a family.

Right. Did he make a shift? Oh, yeah. He made the shift before Did he make the shift? Oh, yeah. He made the shift before. Bob made the shift before and started changing the way he ran his business to profound and positive impact. And he wasn't able to articulate what was driving his mentality. He saw something in one of the companies, but he wasn't able to articulate it as clearly until he had this experience a few years later it's amazing how moments like that can just kind of like snap you into a paradigm really where maybe not change your behavior but all of a sudden just you get why you're doing what you're doing there's some intuitive reason where you know you have to behave in a certain way and you know something has to

happen you can't quite key in on what exactly why like what's the then a moment like that just makes it all this goes back to the beginning of our conversation right which is for you to have that gut feeling that this is the right thing to do is not sufficient. It's good. Don't get me wrong. It's good. But it's the moment at which you can communicate that reason why you made that shift in terms clear enough for other people to understand. And even if those terms aren't description, but they're a story.

Like Bob tells the story of when he was at the wedding. And we can understand that through his story because that's helped him. That story helped him explain, right? But until we find that mechanism, whether it's a model or a tale or a personal experience that helps other people understand that shift that we've gone through, then it's not scalable. It's only scalable when we can share that. Because when I tell that story, a lot of people go, wow, yeah. As opposed to me just saying, it's really important for leaders to care about their employees. Employees are the backbone of your business. Who cares? You know? Pilots to hitmen. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. I mean, so it kind of circles us to an interesting thing. results will vary. I mean, so it kind of circles us to an interesting thing.

When you speak, and I've seen you speak in a number of different places, you essentially storytell. You know, and you have powerful concepts, very often simple concepts, but powerful. And you tell them through, what was the talk that you gave? I think it was a TEDx talk where you came on, you said you had planned on giving a completely different talk, but you had just come off, i think it was a tedx talk where you came on you said you had planned on giving a completely different talk but you had just come off i think it was a military transplant oh it wasn't tedx yeah no no it was the yeah yeah alchemy in 2001 was the name of the event and so powerful yeah and clearly you had just come out of a really yeah deeply personal experience yeah i tell that story as often as i can, as often as those opportunities provide, so that I don't forget the lesson.

I actually remember going through the experience. Can you share something? Yeah, really quickly. I had the opportunity to visit Afghanistan with the United States Air Force in August of 2011, and everything went wrong. I wasn't supposed to be there for a long time. The goal was for me to – I do a lot of work with the Air Force, and the general in charge at the time said,

you know, you hear about us, you need us back home, but I would very much like for you to go and witness our men and women performing their duties so you can really understand. Would you be willing to go? So I said yes. And I didn't tell my family because I didn't want them to worry. It's not like I can call them and say, hey, everything's fine.

I would have been incommunicado. So I told them I was going away with the Air Force, true. I told them I was going to Germany, true. Told them I was going to be on a lot of planes and I would be out of touch for a while, true. I just didn't tell them I was going on to Afghanistan. The goal was to be in country for up to 30 hours to try and get on an airdrop mission while we were there and then come home. We took a C-5 big cargo plane to Germany. We caught another plane, a KC-135, into Bagram.

We landed in Bagram, and 10 minutes after we landed, the base came under rocket attack. I mean, you hear it. It came in like, right? The big doors opened. We were still on the plane, and all the sirens are blaring and put on your vests and everything. Strange calm.

I wasn't freaked out strangely. I don't know why. Probably because everybody else around me was calm. I found out later, only recently, that there were actually three rockets that hit that night, and they hit 100 yards off our nose. Wow. Glad I didn't know that. Anyway, we finally got the all clear.

We went to our housing, and we found out that there was an airdrop leaving very early the next morning. Great. So we got two and a half, three hours of sleep, went on this airdrop. Amazing experience. You know, flew out about an hour, an hour and a half, down to 2,000 feet, and then watched the back of the plane open as we supplied an Army forward operating base with supplies. It was an incredible experience. Came back, now the goal is to leave the country.

It's always at the discretion of available flights and if the pilot is on. We found a flight that was leaving for Germany. It was an outbound aeromedical carrying wounded warriors out of theater. And there were three, it was me and my two escorts. There were three seats on the plane. So great. And we waited and waited and waited and waited and waited. It was a lot of waiting.

Finally, we were on the plane, literally five minutes from leaving. And the pilot came on and said, I need to bump you guys. We need more room for stretchers. And if there's ever a good reason to get bumped, that's it. Okay, so we got off the plane and went to look for another one. And we find out there's no other flights leaving until Tuesday. It's only Saturday. And so I'm now stuck in Afghanistan for four days.

I have no reason to be there. I have no purpose. I have no job. You know, we're stuck in Afghanistan. I can't call my family and say I'm going to be home late. And I remember feeling every fiber of my being just drop. I remember my stomach dropping, just everything. I became depressed.

I became preoccupied with my safety, stomach dropping, just everything. I became depressed. I became preoccupied with my safety, my comfort, my happiness, and I didn't care who had to go out of their way to get it for me. I remember being totally aware of it. I mean, one of the public affairs officers said, we can get you on a flight to Kyrgyzstan, but you don't have the right visas, to which I said, you get me on that plane. I don't talk to people that way. I became that boss who didn't care how he treated us as long as he got what he wanted. You know, that was me now. We went back to our room. One guy said, one of the officers said, I'm going to go see if I can get us on another plane.

The other one said, I'm going to the gym. And they left me in there. And I, my eyes were closed because I was exhausted and they thought I was sleeping, which I wasn't. They turned off the light and they left. And I couldn't relax. My mind was racing. And I became paranoid. I was convinced there was going to be another rocket attack. And I was convinced it was going to land wherever I was. I was convinced. I mean, I was convinced of it.

And it was at that moment that I realized that this is what it's like to be in a dead-end job, where you have no sense of purpose for being there. And you confuse the high times and the big wins with being happy. I had an amazing experience that day, you know, but I didn't want to wake up and do it again, you know, and we confuse happy moments with fulfillment. And so I lay there depressed and paranoid and scared and regretful and hated it. Didn't want to be there. And I gave up after trying to come up with all sorts of mechanisms to help me be happy, I failed. I literally gave up and said, I'm stuck here. If I'm going to be stuck here, I might as well make

myself useful. I'll volunteer to speak if they want me to. I'll go and meet some of the people that I've met again and go up to them and ask them if I can carry boxes, sweep floors. I didn't care how menial the labor. I just wanted to serve those who served others. Instantly, I became calm and relaxed, even excited to be there and be a part of it. Like this amazing calm with this realization. As if it were like a movie, just had this realization. The door flies open. It's Major Throckmorton.

He says, I found a flight. I found a flight. It's been redirected, but we've got to go now. You know, where's Matt? Matt was at the gym. So we ran to the gym. We got him off his treadmill. No time to shower.

Put his uniform back on. We grabbed our stuff. We ran out to the plane. And the time we got out there, we could see the plane sitting out on the runway, out on the tarmac. And as soon as we got out there, security cordon comes down. We're not allowed out. Because there's a fallen soldier ceremony happening somewhere on the base. And out of respect, everything stops while they have the fallen soldier ceremony.

Finally, the cordon goes up. And we go out to the plane. What I haven't told you is the reason this flight was redirected is because we would be carrying home the soldier for whom they just had the ceremony. And so we were the only three passengers aboard this empty plane with one flag-draped casket in the middle. We stood in a line as the army brought their fallen comrade on board. They lay down in the casket.

They did a slow eight-count salute, turned off, marched away. We watched them walk out of sight, crying and hugging each other. And then our crew got to work strapping down the casket. And for nine and a half hours, this was our flight, nine and a half hours, I sat there with this casket right here.

It's an overnight flight. Once we're in the air, we all sort of staked out a piece of real estate on the plane to get some sleep. And every time I opened my eyes, I was greeted with this sight of this flag-draped casket. And that was the greatest honor of my life. You know, to bring home someone who knows a lot more about sacrifice and service than I will ever. You know, it was the greatest honor.

Our final flight home was on an air medical mission where we brought home 37 wounded soldiers and Marines. And one of them was in what they call CCAT, which is critical care, a Marine whose buddy had stepped on an IED and was killed. And he took shrapnel, two broken legs, two broken arms, shrapnel in the chest, punctured eyeball, broken eye socket. And he was kept in an artificial coma at the back of the plane. And this team of doctors looking after him. And I went over and sort of was uncomfortable because I've never seen a body that broken. And I went to talk to the docs who were looking after him and they were amazing. They explained his injuries to me. And more importantly, they explained all the new technologies that were being developed to help

trauma care from these cases that is filtering its way back into our civilian hospitals. So even here, they're still giving back to us. What remarkable human beings. And I asked him what I thought was an odd question, having just had the experience I had the day before. I said to him, he was a reservist who works at an ER in Houston, in Austin, I think it was. And I asked him, I said, you're a good person. You work in an ER. You help people every day of your life. This is your job. Do you have a different sense of fulfillment here than you do back home? And he says to me, it's no comparison. No comparison. He said 90 to 95% of the people who come into the ER at home are either drunks or idiots. He says, there's not a single drunk or idiot here. The sense of fulfillment I have here is vastly greater.

And this is what I learned fulfillment is. Fulfillment is the opportunity to serve those who serve others. That's what it is. If our bosses and our leaders serve us, we will serve them. It would be our honor. If we look after each other, others will look after us, and it would be their honor just as it would be ours to look after them. And this is what service is. This is what fulfillment is. And this is a very, very human experience. And everything that I've learned, everything in the human body is trying to get us to do things for each other. That's why it feels good to do things for each other. Because the human body is trying to positively incentivize us to repeat that behavior.

Because it's good for the species. So that was a profound experience. Like I said, I try and tell that story often so that I don't forget the lesson because I made some significant changes in the way I do business to avoid working with people who don't believe in the concept of giving to others because I found myself getting short-tempered and angry when I got home and didn't want to do my own job like I did I became incredibly impatient and short-tempered doing what I was doing normally you know like traveling and speaking and things. And I realized I would only get, I started to notice that if I visited a base, for example, I had endless amounts of energy and never got upset if anything went wrong. I could work from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. without missing a beat.

And the reason was is because when I got to serve those who serve others, I had endless energy and was happy to do it. And when I served those who only wanted my stuff to selfishly gain and take from others, I couldn't, my body couldn't take it anymore. And so we've figured it's not perfect, but we're pretty good now. Figured out systems to try and avoid those. People criticize me and say, I should be speaking to those who need to hear it. And they'd be right if only they would be willing to act. It's not that I will only speak to the converted. I'll speak to people whose organizations are broken and who aren't doing the right thing,

who do treat their people badly, if the leadership genuinely wants to do the right thing. And they don't know the solution necessarily, but they believe that the right thing to do is look after their people. I'm there. It's the ones who don't care about that and would easily sacrifice their people to preserve the numbers as opposed to preserving the numbers, as opposed to preserving the people to sacrifice the numbers. I'm a happier person for it. And I think my work is probably better for it too. I have no doubt. Which actually is sort of a powerful way to come full circle here. The name of this project is Good Life Project

and it's really an exploration of what does it mean on an individual level because it's so personal to live well in the world, to live a good life. I'm curious how you would reflect on that. Yeah, I don't think it's individual. We are all the same biology. It's already been predetermined that a good life,

waking up inspired, coming home fulfilled, and feeling safe in the middle at work is all biological. And looking after each other, just like the great fulfillment that a parent has when they see their child accomplish something, how amazing is that? To know that your sacrifice was worth it, to know that all that giving and all that hard work, and all that, it was all worth it.

It was all worth it for this one day. So your kid graduates, you could get a job, so you could ride a bicycle, so you could get the driver's license, whatever it is, it doesn't matter, so you could get married. It was all worth it. That's what it is for all of us. It's just an amazingly positive thing to see somebody achieve something because we got the opportunity to help them and they only did it or they did it in large

part and they'll tell us they'll stand up and say i accept this award because of my coach because of my boss i couldn't have done it without them and we share that love and joy thank you you know yeah no it's not individual the opportunity for fulfillment is singular and it's it's the opportunity to to find ways to get to others those in our tribe those in our companies those in our families beautiful thank you so much my pleasure so enjoy the conversation my pleasure thanks so much for listening to today's episode if the stories and ideas in any way moved you, I would so appreciate if you would take just a few extra seconds for two quick things. One,

if it's touched you in some way, if there's some idea or moment in the story or in the conversation that you really feel like you would share with somebody else, that it would make a difference in somebody else's lives, take a moment and whatever app you're using, just share this episode with somebody who you think it'll make a difference for. Email it if that's the easiest thing, whatever is easiest for you. And then, of course, if you're compelled, subscribe let it serve as a catalyst for the elevation of all of us lead to action, that's when real change happens. And I would love to invite you to participate on that level. Thank you so much, as always, for your intention, for your attention, for your heart. And I wish you only the best. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.