Habits and Hustle - Episode 196: Simon Sinek - Renowned Speaker, Optimist, and Author

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

Simon Sinek is a Renowned Speaker, Optimist, and Author. After accumulating hundreds of millions of views in his ever-popular talks circulating online through TEDTalks and other sources on Millennials in the workforce and optimism in business and the economy, Simon seems the go-to for a positive dose of outlook when everyone just wants to point fingers and dunk on each other. It's not about entitlement, not about people not wanting to work, or pervasive laziness. He approaches with the question "Why?" Why are things as they are? What has led to these outcomes? How is it affecting the individuals? All this is for a much more optimistic, empathetic view of how and why we work. If you're looking for a new and fresh approach to the concepts you've heard over and over again you've got to hear what Simon has to say! It's not about blame, but it is about solutions, and it's a riveting conversation! Check it out! Youtube Link to This Episode Simon Sinek’s Website - https://simonsinek.com/ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts.  📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal.  ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website - http://habitshustle.com 📚Habit Nest Website - http://habitshustle.com 📱Follow Jennifer - Instagram - https://instagram.com/therealjencohen - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/therealjencohen - Twitter - https://twitter.com/therealjencohen - Jennifer’s Website - https://jennifercohen.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, the time has almost come. My book, Bigger, Better, Boulder, is hitting the shelves, launching, debuting on December the 27th. And I am so excited. I'm thrilled that I get to share this book with you guys. I took me two years to write it and it really is a culmination of all the different tactics and traits that I used to build my life that I've used on tons of clients from the last 20 years, from athletes to entrepreneurs,

and it's all about building your bold, you know, making boldness a skill that you can learn to really get what you want, chase what you want, and not just take what you can get. My entire philosophy is about living the life you want and not the life you get, and really it's really about taking actionable steps that anybody can do and anybody can learn.

Unfortunately, a lot of us get stuck in the self-doubt syndrome, right, and the fear of failure, which then holds us back from going after things or asking for things that really is much more aligned with who we are in the life we want to live. So that's why I'm so thrilled that I have this book now to share with people about helping people, teaching people how they can make these bold moves and become bolder and asking for what they want and finding the courage within them to live the life they want. Like I said, I'm so excited. It's on pre-order right now. You can pre-order it anywhere, Amazon, Warp Barnes and Noble, Target,

and really start living true to who you are and can't wait to see your response once you get it. Thanks. Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins. you're listening to Habitson Hustle! Crash it! Today on the podcast we have Simon Sinek. Simon is best known probably for his TED Talk on the concept of why, which has been viewed over 60 million times. And also his video on millennials in the workplace, which reached 80 million views in its first week alone,

and has gone on to be seen hundreds of millions of times. He continues to share his inspiration through his best-selling books, including The Global Best Cellar, Start With Why, and The New York Times Best Selling Leaders Eat Last and his newest, well well not so new anymore, but his latest book, The Infinite Game. He also has a podcast called A Bit of Optimism. In addition, he also is the founder of a company called The Optimism Company, which is a leadership

learning and development company, and he publishes other inspiring thinkers and doers through his publishing partnership with Penguin Random House called Optimism Press. I can go on and on. He's also, I mean, I mean, his, this bio is very robust. And I, when I first sat down with Simon, I asked him how he defines himself in an elevator pitch, what would he say he does? And he said to me, he's an optimist. And that's really how he kind of leads his life, and that's how he leads what he does. And I really enjoyed this conversation. And he was also, I should tell you guys, one of the most requested guests that we've had here at Habitson Hustles. So I was super, super happy to sit down with them, enjoy the podcast.

How do you just find what you do? You're not a motivational speaker. Like, where do you fall in what bucket would you say you fall in in terms of what you do for a living? I'm just, let's just start with that. And then we're gonna delve into, hopefully, lots of other stuff. So, I mean, my immediate reactions to Sam and Optimist, I define myself by who I am, not what I do. And I think that one of the big challenges that a lot of people face is they intertwine their

identity with their work. I am a lawyer. I am a fitness coach or whatever, somebody wants to do. And then if you lose that job by your choice or not your own choice, or if you have great success and you get older and you decide to leave and retire or do something else, I see a lot of people have an identity crisis because they no longer do the thing that they did. Yeah. And so I don't mind what I do because I get to be an optimist in everything that I do. And you know, the way I live my life is I live completely focused with a vision that is

extremely far away. Completely, I'll never get there. You know, I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. And for me, the objective is to figure out all the ways that I can to start moving closer and closer towards that world. And so for the better part of the last decade or more, I bet on the leaders. I believe that the leaders, the best bet that we have to get to that world that I imagine,

that if we can find and celebrate and support the kinds of leaders who can build great organizations where people feel like they belong, that feel like they're contributing something bigger than themselves, then we are more likely to get to that world. Now, what's my role in that? Again, completely agnostic. I never, ever imagined that I would be an author. I was never one of those people who thought I had a book in them. After every book I've written, I've said, okay, that's probably my last one. And I said that after the first one. But here I am an author because the opportunity showed up that I thought, oh, this is a good

way to move towards that vision, right? Then people would invite me to speak about my ideas. And I thought, okay, never, ever wanted to be a public speaker, didn't even know that was a career. That's true. That's true, right? I actually am more of a behind the scenes person. I've never desired to be in the front of a pricinium.

But when the opportunities presented themselves, I thought, well, this is a very good way for me to spread this message and to spread this vision. And so, so when you ask me, what do I do? I do anything that I need to do to advance towards that vision. These days, I'll write books and I'll speak about it. But who knows what the next five years will look like. It could be completely, completely different. Well, oh my, so in that one answer, I have now...

He's not annoying me. He's saying, what do you do? And it takes me 30 minutes to answer it. Yeah, exactly. I actually have a friend who did a TED Talk on this. Like, when someone asks you that question of what do you do to how to like do an elevator pitch? Well, I can tell you what I say on an airplane. If somebody says, we do it. Okay, yeah, tell me what you say. I teach leaders and organizations how to inspire people. All right, that's good. And if they believe what I believe, they say inspiration. That's cool. How do you do that? And we can talk about my work for this one as they can stand it. And if they don't believe what I believe, they say, what kind of

company? What kind of organizations? So it's a great filter. Yeah. Immediately, I know if they're on the same wavelength as me or not Do people recognize you in airplanes? These days, yeah, yeah, they do well Okay, first of all my I guess to go back even further than I was going to was did you even when your TED talk is probably what the number two or three Most viewed of all time right like 80 million 100 million by now something insane. I don't know if it's that high, but yeah, it's pretty hot. It's pretty hot. And then of course being, I'm sure it's actually even higher because it's been shared and shared and shared, right? But

where you even, like, how did that even, like, because that takes you, I did a TED Talk recently a couple years ago. And that was considered a viral TED Talk, which like five million or six million. And that, like, and that was considered a viral TED Talk, with like five million or six million, and that put my life on a different trajectory. I can't even imagine with your type of success in that TED Talk, were you completely floored at the response that it had? Yes and no is the simple answer.

OK. I had been a river simple answer with you. Sometimes. OK. The answer is yes and no. I had been giving versions of that talk for three years before I actually did the TEDx. OK.

I'd never done it that short. Right. You know, there were hour long versions. And so I knew that the message had resonance. And I, and I'd been asked so many of the difficult questions that I'd worked out a lot of the kinks and the thinking. So I knew that the message had resonance. I knew that people liked it. So, so I knew that. Okay. But I never expected this, this rinky dink TED talk, TEDx Talk that I did in a hanger and

Puget Sound with a 50 or 100 people in the room where the camera wasn't very low quality. My microphone breaks in the middle of me talking. Me too. Literally, training up mics, you know. I remember seeing that, that was hilarious. And it's living proof that things can go wrong and it'll be fine. Yeah.

Totally fine. So I didn't know that the TEDx talk would do what it did. Okay. And back then, it was unheard of to put a TEDx on the main TED website. So they only put them on YouTube. And there was a separate page for TEDx talks just on YouTube. And the main TED talks would just be on the TED.com.

And it very quickly became the most watched TEDx of all. And then they put it on TED.com. And I only found out that they were going to do that a week before they did it. So and then it continued to grow, you know, extremely fast. So yeah, that was all a shock to me. That was all a surprise to me. I never, I knew the message had residents. I never knew that it was going to do that. That was a surprise, you know.

So before you did that, I mean, you said you were doing these big talks anyway. So you were already doing public speaking at some level, right? So just walk me through, because I'm actually very curious about you before you. Do you know what I mean? That's what I'm really kind of curious about. So you didn't, you were like disgruntled with your career

a little bit, right? I wouldn't say disgruntled. I didn't fall in love, yeah. I was, I had no passion foruntled. I didn't love that. I had full and out of love, yeah. Okay. I had no passion for my career. Okay. This was a chosen career. I started my own business in the category

and a profession that I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life in. Consulting. Oh, okay. That's how it's going to be. You know? And to wake up one morning with a superficially good life, I own my own business.

We had amazing clients. We did really good work. Our clients liked us and didn't want to do it anymore. It's kind of distressing because as I said, where we started, so many of us intertwine our identities with our work. And if I don't like my work, then who am I? Right.

And so I went through that, which was incredibly unfun. And it was the discovery of this little idea that I called the golden circle, you know, where we all know what we do, some of us know how we do it, but very few of us know why we do it. I realized I didn't know why I was doing what I was doing. And it was that crisis that was designed to do nothing more than help me find my own passion to get back my mojo that put me in a path that was unexpected. My entire career is an accident. Amazing. I am living proof that you don't have to have a plan. Exactly, and it worked out for you, right? You have to have a vision, you have to have a plan. Right, right, right, exactly.

And it worked out for you, right? You have to have a vision. You have to have a vector. You have to have a direction. But you definitely don't need to know the individual steps. So you kind of answered earlier. Well, before I even go into that, you said something in your first answer to me,

which I thought was interesting, that you're not defining yourself by what you do, but the problem I find in today's time anyway, it's very, everything's kind of very much dovetails, like who you are, what you do, what you do is really who you are. So you become friends with the people you work with or who are aligned with what you do.

There's very little separation in that. So I'm interested in how you, in what, how are you able to like compartmentalize that a little bit, you know what I mean? Because I find it very difficult. Like, what I do, it's not, two things happened. I think that other people compartmentalize you as well. So if I was a health and fitness person, but I'm also this thing and that thing and that thing, the other like outside from that people pigeonhole you. So it's very hard to break away. You're saying that like you're not really defined

by what you do, but what you want or how would you, like you're being an optimist, how, what kind of advice, or would you suggest for other people out there? Because I think that there's a lot of confusion and people do get pigeonholed and or they don't know the different, they are confused because like you said, they are what they do. And so there's no distinction. Yeah, I still get pigeonholed. People know me as the thing that is familiar.

So people know me as the thing that is familiar. You know, and so I remember in the early days, you know, when the only thing I could talk about was starting with wine. Yeah. When I started to have more ideas and different ideas, and I would pitch to these prospective engagements, I'd like to talk about something new. They'd all say no, because they wanted me to do the thing

that they knew was good, that they wouldn't let me try something new and so I just arbitrarily picked one and basically didn't do as I was told and decided to do something new on the stage and I think there's a And I'm you know, I'm not I'm not saying there's a one size fits all here. You know, there's a there's a risk tolerance But I like testing things in real life. Many of my ideas are from real life scenarios. Okay, it's not like practice, practice, practice.

Okay, it's ready for the real world now. There have been more than one occasion where I've walked out on stage and go, okay, they brought me into to talk about this. But I'm having some new ideas. You guys okay, if I try talking about this, it might completely fail. I just wanted to get some,

and like people, especially, you pick your audience as you pick a roomful of entrepreneurs, they're fine with it. If I pick a roomful of engineers, maybe not. But maybe engineers are fine with that too. And so, and then I would try new things. And, and, you know, I think, I think what makes it work, it's very often when we do these things, we show up with a selfish disposition. Right? I hope they like me. I hope they like my work.

I hope they buy my book. I hope they go to my website. I hope they follow me on social media. And we act that way. We put a picture behind us on the PowerPoint, and it has all of our social media handles on it and it has a phone number and a website and an email address. And we say at the end, somebody asks a question, it's like, you know, question whatever. And we reply, well, you'll have to read my book.

Well, that's from my book, you know. And it's like, we put ourselves and that's, people can tell. And in those cases, we're not rooting for you. In fact, we're going to try and trip you up. Right. Because we can't help ourselves. It's entertaining. You know, you put yourself at the front.

We'll have fun with that. And so I've learned early to show up with a givers mentality where I don't care if they like me. I don't care if they buy a book. I don't care if they follow me in social media or not. All I know is is I have something that I think is really valuable and I'm going to give it to you. I want to give it to you. And I believe, and I'm giving to you with all of my gusto and all of my energy. And so like I remember, you know, people would apologize because they, you know, they said

there's going to be this size event and like only half the number of people showed up and they're apologizing. And I know a lot of speakers who would get angry. You promised me this size audience. And I was like, well, I just feel sorry for the people who didn't show up because the people who did show up were gonna get all of me.

Right. You know, I hold back nothing. And I think when you show up with a giver's heart, and I literally will say that, before I go out on a stage, I will literally say, under my breath, before I step on the stage, you're here to And I literally will say that. Before I go out on a stage, I will literally say under my breath, before I step on the stage, you're here to give. I will remind myself that what I'm about to do

is an active generosity. I think I have something pretty and I wanna share it. And people can tell. Yeah, authenticity. People can tell. And so you have a wide birth when you show up with a giver's heart. You can make mistakes and you can stumble

over your words and you can talk a little bit too much like I am right now. And people are just fine with it. Yeah. So I think we're highly attuned social animals. And if you show up to give, you can believe it or not, you can experiment a lot. How can someone change that though, right? Like if you're a natally-ally someone who doesn't think like that,

right, I'm here to give, because you're right. I think human nature, I want to send my book, go check out my handle, do this, do that, do that. How do you shift your mindset? How can you train your brain to think differently like that? So it is authentic because you buy just saying it, doesn't make it so. Correct.

Right? Of course you can train yourself. Like, I wish I could be healthy, but you know there's so many things, and I'm just not a healthy person, and can I ever be healthy? Of course, of course. You just practice.

Like you just start. Yes, of course. And it may not work the first five or 10 times. You know, you go to the gym a bunch of times in the row, you will see no results. Right. You know, like these things sometimes take time, it's the same. You know, the best I can sum it up when I really started to learn this lesson was, many

years ago, I had a meeting at the Pentagon of all places with a big fancy general. And I was waiting in the, in the foyer, just waiting for, for him. And have you ever had it where you go to a meeting or? Pentegon, no. Well, I mean, you've had meetings. And somebody comes to get you to take you to the conference room or the office or whatever. And you have hallway talk, because walking quietly

down a hallway is too uncomfortable. And so you have hallway talk, which is nonsense. It's things like, how is, you know, hot day out today? Or did you have an easy trip? You know, it's just nonsense. It's just nonsense. And as soon as you walk into the room, that ceases, right?

Well, that's what happened to me. The general came to get me, and we were walking back to his office, and the hallway talk ensued. And he said, you know, Simon, I had everyone in my office read your book. And I said, my publisher thanks you. And he said, tell them not to bother. I had them read my copy. This episode is brought to you by GlobalX ETFs. Start your investing journey by exploring

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visit globalxetfs.com. you. Grab a with love today. Vitamin water zero sugar nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass. Oh, that's what he said. So I learned total book sales. One, total impact. Huge. Versus I go to an event and they give away 500 free copies of my book, but they use them as you know, coasters and door stops. Total book sales, 500 total impact, zero. And so I had to learn that it's not always easy to measure the impact that we have in the short term. Now I know over the long term book sales do are a reflection of the value of my ideas and whether people want them.

Otherwise, it would just stop selling. I know over the time, but in the short term, literally, it tells me nothing. And I think too many of us confuse that the short term impacts that we're having are producing long term value or, conversely, having no short term impact means we're having no value. And so I treat it like exercise, which is, I know that the process matters. So for example, you can't go to the gym for nine hours and get into shape. It literally doesn't work, right?

No matter how much effort you put in. But if you work out every single day for 20 minutes, guaranteed 100%, you will get into shape. When will you get into shape? No clue. No one knows. Over time. And everyone's different.

Some people a little quicker, some people a little slower. And yet we are 100% sure. 100%. It'll 100% work. I just don't know when. And we're also obsessed with predicting when. It has to be this quarter. It has to be the end of the year. It has to be when we pay also obsessed with predicting when it has to be this quarter, it has to be the end of the year, it has to be when we pay taxes, it has whatever it is, like,

you know, and I got very comfortable saying, I know that if I stick to the process, I work out every day for 20 minutes, I know 100% it's going to work, and I have to get comfortable that I have no control over when. Sometimes quicker, sometimes slower. And so the things that I wrote about in start with why, is the game plan that I have followed since I first wrote about it, since I first started talking about it. I do start with why. When somebody says, what do you do? I don't sell them what I do.

I tell them what I believe. And I wrote about the law of diffusion of innovations, which is a religion for me. And explain what that is. So all populations sift across the standard deviation, the old bell curve, right? If you have high performers in a population, you're gonna have low performers,

you're gonna have an average, always, right? What the law of diffusion tells us is that the first 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 of any population are your innovators. These are your big idea of people, right? Then the next about 13 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 of your population are your early adopters, these people are very comfortable spending extra money, time, energy, making some sort of sacrifice to be a part

of something that's bigger than themselves, that reflects who they are. Then you have the majority, the early majority and the late majority, a little more cynical, a little more practical. You know, what's in it for me? Will I get my money back if it doesn't work? Will I get in trouble? That kind of thing, a little more risk averse. And then finally, the last 16% you have your lagers.

The only reason they do anything is because you basically don't have a choice anymore. What the law of diffusion tells us is that if you want to have mass market success, if you want an idea to spread or be sticky, you want to have mass market success, if you want an idea to spread or be sticky, you have to achieve between 15 and 18% market penetration and then a social phenomenon happens called a tipping point and it just goes. But because most of us want the majority, we aim all of our efforts at the majority,

which actually doesn't work, because the majority will not try something new until somebody else is trying to first. And so, as soon as I learned that, I became obsessed with earlier doctors. And, you know, I get accused now of people saying, well, you can afford to turn work down. I'm like, no, no, no, no, I've been targeting work down when I was living hand to mouth. Like, I needed every gig I could get because I was broke and I had no money in my bank account. You were? Totally. Yeah.

I was literally living paycheck to paycheck. And I- When was this? I mean, just when I first discovered Start With Wire, remember I walked away from a marketing business that I had a lot of passion for, lost passion for. When I discovered this start with Y thing, I decided to make myself the guinea pig

and I shut down my marketing company. So I had no discernible. So you did shut it down. I was asking that. I shut it down. I had no discernible. I had no discernible income. And so I was literally like scraping it together. But you had clients you just decided one day. You just didn't want to do it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it wasn't for because like the business was like fl Not because it was flailing because when you have no passion for something, turns out it makes it a lot harder. Right. So it's actually, you know, it's like, yes, I lost my passion, the business was flailing. I probably wouldn't have gone out of business, but it definitely felt that way.

But turning down all this business. So I'll give you a real life example. You know, I got very, very good at discerning who was a believer and who wasn't, who was an early adopter and who wasn't. So go back to the elevator pitch. You know, what do you do? I teach leaders and organizations how to inspire people. If they hear the word inspire, okay, they believe what I believe. If they don't hear the word inspire, they don't believe what I believe, right? It's what wavelength, they're way on the same wavelength. And I remember, I actually, this is a true story.

I remember somebody who had, this is early days, there was no start with wide book, there was no start with wide TED talk, and I was just sort of like trying to figure it out and I was doing consulting, doing wide discovery stuff. And I remember a guy called me, and he said, I got your phone number from someone, convinced me why I should hire you.

Right? And I did not go into sales pitch mode because my head is, this guy is not an early adopter, this guy will not help me spread my message. This guy wants to be convinced. And I literally said, I can't help you. Come on, convince me I said, there's nothing I can say or do that will convince you that you and I should work together. I'm the wrong guy for you, right?

And I never worked with him. Now, I needed the client, but he was the wrong client. And I'd rather struggle just a little bit longer to find the right person to work with, because when I found the right people to work with, even if I made a little less money, what they did is they told five people about me or ten people about me, but they did more than that. They told the right people about me, or they made introductions by saying, Simon, there's

somebody you need to meet, and they would tell their friends, you need to meet this person, which is way more powerful than me saying anything that it comes from an objective third party. And so other people were responsible for my message spreading. Other people responsible for the people I met. Other people responsible for helping me sell the book. I had no PR machine or anything like that. I remember going in the early days I would ask the audience, how many of you have seen the TED talk, and a lot of people raised their hands,

and I said, how many people were sent it by someone else? And that number was usually around 75%. So these people weren't even Tedsters. Somebody said, oh my God, you know who would love this? And they would send it to their friend. Yeah. And that's all the law of diffusion. And so there's nothing that I'm doing

that's mythical or magical, right? They're social phenomena that I've written about other people have written about that law of diffusion is not my ideas. I'm at Rogers in the 1960s, you know? The only thing that I did like anything that works is I had the discipline to do it. Right? You want to get into shape, you have to have the discipline to do it. You want to get into shape, you have to have the discipline to do it. You want to be healthy, you have to have the discipline to do it. And so, and you have to get comfortable that you cannot predict

when success happens. You just have to believe that the process works and you stick to the process. That's all I did. And everything that I did is written about in that book. That's literally the thing that I followed. So you actually believe number one, and you had the discipline to kind of follow it through. It's hard to turn down. Now, look, it's not a perfect system. Like even somebody who's very healthy sometimes wants to have a big piece of chocolate cake.

Yes. But you do it with eyes wide open. Like you know this puts you slightly out of balance. You know that you might have to do a little extra work to get it out of your system. And you also know you can do it now and then, but you can't do it every day. Right. Right? So did I do business with clients I shouldn't have? Of course I did.

Right. But I'm like human for God's sake. And or if I needed to pay bills. Right. But I did it with eyes wide open, not believing that this was going to like set me up and I was doing it for a short term because I needed a little infusion of sugar. Right. You know, and I knew not to do it too often.

So it's the same mentality. Yeah, it is the same mentality. It's just very hard to do. And people like to take the short term gratification, quick fix all the time, especially in today's time, I feel like I don't know what I do know what you think. But I feel like when I grew up, I do know what you think. It was a different mentality than it is today. Like people's work ethic isn't as strong

if I was to be honest, but I think what I call, it's very much like a caudal culture type of world right now where everyone always gets to participation, trophy, people are offended very easily. It's very, very different. It's hard to, I feel, it's hard to lead in a world like that. And it's hard to work in a world like that when you have so many things,

I feel so many constraints around other people, right? Like nobody wants to work, but also nobody wants to, nobody, nobody wants to be given direction. Everyone wants to be a leader, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but yet nobody wants to put in the discipline, the hard work, and the effort. Have you noticed this might yourself, even though you are very optimistic about people? Of course. Of course. I mean, each generation is different. They have their, you know, advantages and disadvantages. I think the thing that sums up all those, what I would call symptoms, that you're listing is there's a deep and grained impatience. It's younger generation.

That previous generations seem to have less of, you know, you suggest to a young kid when you take a gap year before college, you know, and the thought of taking a year off, literally what the thought that goes through their mind is, no, I'm, I might, but then I'll be behind in my career. Right. You know, missing the value that you actually bring from a year off to go explore as traveler, you know,

work even, from a year off to go explore, travel, work, even. Or I have to have the perfect job out of the gate, and everything has to go perfectly, and I have to get promoted quickly, because if I don't, I'm gonna be behind. And reaching 25, 26, 27 years old, and having this cordal life crisis and panic, which previous generations didn't really have cordial life crises.

Where you feel like, oh my God, what's my career, what's my life. There's this strange impatience, and it probably comes from running up in a world of instant gratification, where years before social media, if you wanted to go on a date, you know, first you had to meet them somewhere and you had to be like, hey, you know, and like, you, that somebody had to muster up the courage to ask and somebody had to muster up the courage to go. And it was, it took a little bit of time to get a first date, a little bit of flirting, a little bit of time to get a first date, a little bit of flirting, a little bit of, you had to learn something.

Right. Socialization. Socialization. We're now just swipe right and I got a date instantly. Right. I'm feeling a little lazy. I'm just, there's nothing on TV. Oh, look, I got a date.

Exactly. Right. You know, shopping. You just go on Amazon and it literally shows up the next day. Or the same day. Or the same day in some cases. Even early online shopping, you'd buy something in two weeks later, it would show up. Totally.

And now it's the next day. And we're kind of just used to that. We're kind of used to, even information. You're sitting at dinner and you're like, who is that actor? Hold on. Or Alexa, who is so interested? Right? I have unlimited access to unlimited information. I did that with you by the way not for me But for my nine year old oh Side I wish they would add the word please at the end of it of Alexa. Yes, I would be nice

Wouldn't it? You know Alexa turn on the lights please. Yes, otherwise it won't work Different different conversations tell tell a lot of Jeff Bezos that next time you talk to him. Please, Jeff, tell Jeff to, to, is this please? Yeah. So, um, by the way, have you ever had talked to the Amazon? Do you talk about them all the time as an example of like company and bubble blah and lots of the talks you do? Do you ever do any kind of like speaking thing with them or learn? I haven't. Oh, yeah. Or with Jeff Bezos, I'm going to write that down. I haven't. Oh. Yeah.

Or with Jeff Bezos, I'm going to write that down. Email Jeff. Yeah, I'm going to. So I think it's, you know, we're all products of our childhood. And our environment. And our environment. And our environment is we're all molded by the experiences we have in the experiences around us when we're younger and affect our world view.

And I think if you grow up in a world of instant gratification, get, get, get, get, get, you know, there's very little waiting for things, even grades, you know, wait for grades, you find them out, you take a test, you find out the grade immediately. You know, you take a standardized test, you can log on and get the grades when you're done with the test. Absolutely. I'm not, I want to interject though, what I'm thinking more about is the fact that people's work ethic isn't high anymore. They want the instant gratification, but also there's a laziness that's instilled because I think because everything comes so easy, the swiping to find a date or, you know, Amazon to like, you know, when you want to buy something. But there's also this other layer of just work-life balance.

And this and that. And I know you're all about balance. So this is going to be kind of hard for me to kind of explain, to talk to you about. But is there such a thing when you're really trying to build habits and how to, when you're trying to build your career at the beginning and really want to strive and be successful, isn't there an imbalance just naturally?

Of course. Of course, but balance is the wrong, balances doesn't mean even. Oh, okay. Right. It's not about equals, but Oh, okay. Right. Um, uh, you know, it's not about equal, it's what equitable. Okay. Right. Like great relationships aren't equal, they're equitable.

Right. An equal relationship is I cook, you cook. I clean, you clean. I do the dishes, you do the dishes. That's, you know, that's an equal relationship. An equitable relationship is I'll cook you do the dishes. I'll put the kids to bed, you take out the garbage. That's an equitable relationship, right?

We're not doing the same things, it's not equal, but it feels balanced. Everybody's okay with the distribution of labor, right? And we have to remember that there's nothing for free. There's nothing in this world that comes for free. And everything that you get comes at a cost always. And the only question is, is the cost worth it? And so if you want to achieve, like there's a lot of people who've done extremely well, the question is at what cost? What we're talking about is the desire

to have without paying for it, which is, I want this, but I'm not willing to pay the cost. Right? So, for example, working really hard to get something. I want to achieve this. The cost is, I'm going to have a couple sleepless nights. I'm going to work a little harder. I'm going to miss out on some social events. I might be a little bit exhausted now and then. But for me, that's worth the cost,

because of what I'm trying to accomplish. And so I think what we're seeing is a misunderstanding of the cost to benefit equation. And by the way, it's not for us to say whether the cost that was worth it to us is worth it to other people. It may not be. to us is worth it to other people. It may not be, right? And that's not for us to decide. I think where we do get to interject is, if you wanna have something like what we've done, but you aren't willing to pay any cost

in make any sacrifice, that's a complicated scenario, right? Because ain't nothing for free. 100%. I'm so happy that you said that, because that is a 100% in my opinion, completely accurate. But it's not for us to determine

what someone's ambitions should be either. Like if somebody is totally fine, right, you know, here, and whatever here is defined as, I mean, it doesn't matter to be financial, it could be anything, whatever it is, right? If somebody's fine here and they don't work a lot of hours, and this is fine.

And for them, this is very happy. I think that's fantastic. I'm not telling anybody they have to live my way, your way, their way, this way, that way. I don't wanna live one way either. Like, I don't need max, max, max, whatever other people have because I don't want to work to that degree either. Like, I accept that there's some degree of things that I can achieve because I'm just not willing to do the work. Absolutely. I'm okay with that.

And you're, but you already are self aware enough to know that about your size wide open. It's eyes wide open. But I think it's, I think what you're saying is basically what I'm saying is that there's a that there is a cost. You can't have it all. If you want this, sometimes when people say, oh, you know, you can have this work. You can be a woman. You can be a CEO and be a powerhouse, but also have like three kids and be a wonderful mom and then be an amazing wife.

Something always has to give. So, to me, that's just being honest and being real. A friend of mine who was a senior executive at a big company, your mom, you know, she had kids. She told me very early on when I was, she was like my work mom, like I was entry level and she took me under a wing. She was a partner at the company. And I remember, I don't remember how the conversation came up, but she, I remember her telling me, she goes, any woman who decides to be, to want a career and to be a mother, to be a working mother has to get used to the idea

that you're always gonna disappoint someone. You just have to get used to it. You're gonna disappoint your company because you wanna stay home with your kids or you're gonna disappoint your kids because you wanna work late. Like, you just have to get comfortable with the fact that you're always gonna disappoint someone.

Or sometimes you disappoint yourself. Right. You know? Like, but the point is, what she was, there was another way of saying, there's a cost for the choices I've made.

And by the way, you can always change those choices too. Right. Like that's also on the table. Like none of these things are, you know, one and done. Right, etched in stone. Etched in stone. Right.

And I think that's one of the things that COVID did for a lot of us, which is we went back and re-evaluated some of the choices we made and thought, oh, I can recalibrate, you know? And I think that's kind of what we're going through right now, which is this weird period of, you sort of like, sort of nobody's really exactly sure how the working world is going to net out. I think I think there's a massive recalibration happening, some of which shows up as debate over, do we come back to work? Do we not come back to work? Is it hybrid? What does it even look like? How does that even work? What does hybrid look like? What are the rules of hybrid? What do you think of hybrid? What do you think of all these rules? You go on to companies talking about this all the time. It is causing a lot of stress for a lot

of companies. I get asked the question all the time, which is, what are we supposed to do? The answer is, I have no clue. The only thing I know, I think we can say for certain, is that flexibility is here to stay. Where it used to be, can I ask permission to work from home next Friday, because my kids are going to be home from school, and now you can just email in the morning, so I'm working from home today and everybody's fine with it. I think that's here to stay.

But the exact balance, I don't think anybody got it figured out yet, and how you enforce the balance, I don't think anybody's figured out yet, and I don't think the right balance is gonna suit every company either. Like, I think it's gonna be different. Especially if you have people that have to come to work, you're in manufacturing or retail or something,

and people who don't have to come to work, because they in manufacturing or retail or something, and people who don't have to come to work because they're still accounting and back office in those companies, does it create a divided system of haves and have knots? People who have agency and people who don't. That's not healthy for a culture either. So I don't think we know yet, and I think it's a bit of chaos right now, combined with the fact that many of us are sort you know, sort of going through our own recalibrations, going, what kind of life do I want?

So I think it's a bit of a mess, but it's okay. It'll organize. I think chaos is great because chaos is an opportunity for creativity, right? Because without chaos, you have to break something to change something. Right. Now you don't have to break it. You can just change it. But one thing for you.

It's a great opportunity. You think so because I think that. You get to re-invert work, we get to re-invert, re-invert work is. True, but what happens if everybody's, there's so much flex, the pendulum has swung so far, what happened to collaboration and- Yeah, it'll all suffer, this is what happens.

And socialize again, it has to be socialize, of course, people are coming like a ton of like we're talking about. A Tomatoms? Yes, a Tomatoms. Yes, because everything is like a screen or this like we now don't even know like what people even really look like in real life.

We definitely don't know how tall they are. Yeah, definitely don't know that. That's that nice, what do you call it? We, we had somebody in our team that was hired during COVID. And I'd never met her until, you know, he's year into working with us. Right. And when I met her, she's six one. I was like, what the, like, I had no idea. Like, we're always the same height when I look at you on the screen.

Exactly. You know, so, um, so you're right, the pendulum did swing the other way, but that's what happens. Yes. It's a reaction. There's a cost for that reaction, and it'll come back. That's why I say it's a chaotic time.

But I think that we can whine about it, or we can say, okay, how can we have some say of what it could be? And let's have those conversations out loud. Let's talk about the costs. Let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages. Like, yes, it's great to have flexibility to work from whatever you want, but it does damage collaboration and brainstorming.

Like creativity is going to go down because everybody is so excessively polite on Zoom and they mute themselves when they're not speaking. And if you've ever had a brainstorming meeting, that's not how it is. It's messy and noisy and you interrupt each other and nobody's offended when you interrupt each other. And you're like, oh, I got an idea. And that's what produces great brainstorming. Totally.

So, you know, I've started when I have, it doesn't work with big meetings, but I've started doing it with small meetings where I make everybody keep their microphones on. And I encourage just speaking out, like it's a real meeting, you know, which it does help. It does help. But not the same as being in person. Does not, of course not. You and I talking over Zoom would not feel exactly like this.

You can't create human connection when there's a screen and faculty. But I think we all know that. That's not the news. I think the news is, well, okay, what are we gonna do? And some people are saying, well, I don't care about that because I value my freedom. I value my this and I value where I wanna live.

And it's sort of like, I think if anything, there's sort of a weird selfishness to it all. And it goes back to what we're saying, which is I want everything, I want my cake, and I want to eat it, and I want everything, and everything's gonna go my way. Having it my way is a very noble aspiration, just unrealistic.

It's like you have kids, you love to get all your sleep. It's not how it works. Right. And it goes back to what we were just saying a minute ago, which is there's a cost for everything. And but that's okay. I think, I think those lessons will be learned. You know, I said some things ago, I said things on another podcast recently that when I read

the comments, like people were like lashing out, which I thought was so fascinating. What did you say? I basically talked about how this young, it's skews younger, it's not completely, but it's skews younger, have become very comfortable quitting. It's become normalized.

Where when you and I were younger, even if you didn't like your job, you had to stay for at least a year because otherwise you'd destroy your resume. Totally. It was, it is what it is. You just had to suck it up for a year, right? By the way, I saw you talk about that on something and I was, that's one of the things I was like, oh my god, exactly, that's so true.

So, and this is what I talked about and I talked about how where quitting has become so normalized that there's a lot of people, excuse younger, who quit very quickly. After three months or four months, maybe they're having a bad week or they're a confrontation avoidant and don't want to ask for a raise, so it's just easier to quit. Or maybe they got in trouble and they're like, you know, fuck my boss and like I'm gonna quit And okay, you know, and so you know What ends up happening is flash forward five years is gonna be a portion of the of the workforce That over the course of five years has had nine or ten jobs and any employer is gonna look at a resume and be like

Yeah, no, I'm not gonna take the right you're so smart. You're brilliant, but I can't take the risk, you know, or they have been in the workforce for five years, but they've only really had about seven months of work experience because they keep starting again. And they know what it's like to work in calm waters, but they have yet to really sit through and weather a storm, because going through a hard time, whether you're having a hard time at work or whether the company is having a hard time, like you learn skills in that that are valuable to companies. And by the way, they're valuable to you.

And so, and I said these things and I couldn't believe the backlash, you know, in the comments. Like what? Well, you know, you know, that I was speaking from the point of an employer and, you know, that's about exploitation. And I'm like, I, you know, I'm not, and I think there's a sort of a misunderstanding and a quick to judge. Like, I have no judgment in what I'm saying. It's an observation.

It's an observation that younger people generally are more comfortable quitting more quickly. And if we go back to, again, this is gonna be our recurring theme, what's the cost of that? Yes. Yes, it has benefits. Absolutely.

Why should you put up with a job you don't like, get out of there. Sure, Absolutely. Yes, your boss is not the world's most fantastic leader. Not a bad person, but not a great leader. Sure, get out of there. It sounds great, but there's a cost. I'm not sure those costs are being weighed, but there will be an accounting in five years. And that's all I'm saying, which is just be aware. Just go in with eyes wide open. Think of the long game. You can still make the decision. You can still make the decision. I'm not saying make or don't make the decision. I'm seeing be cognizant of the long game.

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And I'm not asking anybody to do that. And you're not, and I know this is not. To be a drug toxicity, you know? Of course not. But I do, but don't you, don't you do things like, do you think I want to work out every single day and like grind on that? No, but if I want to, if I see the results

that I get the end of the day, or they're in the year or whatever we're saying, you put up with the stuff that you don't want to do for the long term gain of what you can get. That there is an equation, right? And as I said, I think that when we think of equations, we think of the short-term benefit. Yes. And we, that's fine. There's always short-term benefits and liabilities. There's no problem with that. But we also have to consider the long-term benefits and liabilities, especially

in, in, in, if we consider relationships or careers or life, these things are not finite games. Right. Which is, they keep going. And to think about them as sort of these, the word is, these unique experiences that don't exist in any context is, there's a word for it, I can't remember what it is. But you think of these events as discrete packets that have no consequences before or after that, there's no context. I think

it's just blind. I mean, of course there's context, there's context for everything. Absolutely. So yeah. But what's the, like, I think I saw some of you're talking about, was it like self-actualization versus shared actualization, right? Because we're living in a time, everyone wants to be self-actualized. And we're saying that people now, it's like a very selfish, me, me-oriented world, right?

What did you mean by shared? Like, can you explain that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, I think that especially the United States over indexed on the concept of rugged individualism. And you can see it play out in how we, you know, what our guidance counselors tell us, what our bosses tell us, you know, the incentive structures in our, and reward systems in our universities

and in our businesses, which is, it's all individual performance. Right. And we pay little to no consideration to teamwork or did you serve the team or did you serve yourself? And that has cost, you know, to the team. And, you know, it basically goes to Maslow's higher of higher archivines, which is where the

self-actualization came from. That's the top of his. So I think Maslow was wrong, right? So Maslow's higher of give needs, the base of the pyramid is food and shelter, you need that first. And the third wrong up is human relationships. And at the top of the pyramid is self-actualization.

So you're supposed to work your way up the higher I give needs until you get to self-actualization. And what Maslow's mistake is is that he only thinks of us as individuals, but what he fails to consider is that we're also simultaneously members of groups. Every single one of us, every single day, lives in paradox. You know, we are individuals. I want my own identity.

I want my own individuality. I want to self-express all of those things. All true. And simultaneously, I'm a member of a family, a member of a church, a member of a team, a member of a company, a member of a synagogue, whatever. You know, like, I have membership I have membership, and I have responsibility as in the group. And there's a debate.

Do I put myself first at the sacrifice of the group? What do I put the group first at the sacrifice of myself? And some will say there's a whole school of thought that says you always prioritize yourself because if you don't help yourself, you can't help others. And they always give the same stupid analogy, which is when you're in a plane, you put your mask on before you can help somebody else. That's a crashing plane, not a good analogy, right? That's a crashing plane with no air in it.

Correct. You have to put yourself first. Correct. Right? That's not a good analogy for life. Right. But then there's a school of thought that says, no, you have to help others always first. Otherwise, the group will never be there to help you. But that's martyrdom. And sometimes you get to it to a point where you actually do destroy yourself, but you're trying so hard to help everybody else, but everybody else. First, right. The answer is both. It's a paradox. It's complicated. And so where Maslow got it wrong, is he failed to consider his members of groups, which is why he put food in shelter first, which is true as an individual, but I've never heard of anybody dying by suicide

because they were hungry. Right. Die by suicide because you're lonely, which is the third thing up, but it seems more important than food, right? And so how selfish is it that we work to self-actualization and we metaphorically literally sit on , well, not literally, I'm metaphorically, but metaphorically sit on top of a pyramid looking down at all the unself-actualized people. How selfish that we live a life so

that we can get to the top of a pyramid as opposed to share to actualization. Like, how do we take as many people with us to find joy, love, fulfillment, safety? Come, let's go on that journey together to the top of the pyramid. Is that not my responsibility as a member of the group, to take as many people with me as possible, to look out for them, to take care of the weak ones and not let the strong ones get to ahead of themselves

because we're a part of a team. By the way, I think that I'm describing is called leadership. But isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? You know, we have an entire section in the bookshop called Self-Help and we have no section in the bookshop called Help Others. And we have entire industries that are literally telling us how we can find happiness, how we can find love, how we can find the perfect job, and yet no one is teaching us how we can help our friends find love and how we can help our friends find the job of their dreams and how we can help our friends find happiness. And that is a skill set equal to the skill set of helping oneself.

They have, they both have value. I'm not rejection. I'm not rejecting taking care of oneself, but I'm telling you that there's also another part of this equation. And I think that we've overdone this one, and you see it reflected now, even the way we've commercialized and made miraculously made things like meditation and yoga, selfish. How can I love it? I feel so present. I feel so present. Now, yes, there are absolutely benefits to meditation. We know the benefits

of taking care of oneself and finding that mindfulness, right? We know all those social and medical benefits, but the reason we practice meditation, I think about it in meditation, as you sit still, you focus on one thing whether it's mantra or your breath or whatever it is, and you put everything else out of your mind. And if you have a thought, you label it a thought, and you say, I'll deal with that later. And you find this incredible calm and peacefulness that comes. The reason we call it a practice is so you can practice it for others, not just for yourself. Yes, we know the benefits to you.

Have you ever taken that practice and given it to others? So when they're sitting there telling you their problems, that you're not just thinking of the thing that you want to say next, you're not just thinking how do you can fix their problems. Where they tell you about their great day and you interrupt them and tell them about your great day. But rather because you've been practicing this mindfulness that you can sit completely quietly focused on one thing and one thing only is what they're telling you. And if something goes bang over there, you actually don't turn your head because you're so focused and you have a thought and you label it

And you put it out of your mind as I'll deal with it later because right now I'm focused on the person I'm with and the end of that Interaction you will know you were present when they tell you you were We are not present until someone tells us we are present and they will say things like thank you for listening They will say things like I feel heard they will say thank you, thank you for listening. They will say things like, I feel heard. They will say, thank you for being present with me, holding space for me. Congratulations, all that hard work you've been doing, meditating was now also for the benefit of another.

And what we also know is that the medical science on this, for all the benefits of mindfulness for oneself, are multiplied by 10 when you do it for someone else. By 10. Service. Omar Brownson talks about this. He specializes in gratitude. Right, yes.

And he talks about the difference, the way he labels it is mindfulness versus heartfulness, you know. And he and I talked about how mindfulness is about me and I mean, my head would heartfulness is about someone else, right? And he has the data that there's 10x medical benefit to the service of mindfulness, rather than the taking of mindfulness. It has benefit.

And I'm not saying, not do this. I'm saying also do this, you know? I know the study you're talking about. It's in my book that I just wrote, but it's about gratitude. I say not service, I say the word gratitude, because people think that if they journal in a gratitude, they journal that that's having gratitude, but it's actually the act of telling somebody, thank you, or sort of basically turning it on its head to somebody else, the effects are like tenfold, which I think the same is the same thing.

And in our fast-paced, you know, social media world, I think we've conflated some of these human practices, and we've sort of sort of mixed them up a little bit. You know, one of my favorites is people who put these beautiful posts on Instagram, them as babies being held by their dad, and it says, happy birthday, dad, or happy father's day, dad. Your dad's not on Instagram. Like who are you telling? Like who are you saying?

Like who are you? Like your dad, what did you call your dad? Like happy, you're the best sister happy siblings day, did you call your dad? Like, happy, you're the best sister, happy siblings day. Did you call your sibling? You know, I find that funny. I find it so phony and bullshit is what I call it. And, or that we talk about vulnerability when, you know, you talk about your breakup

or the hard thing you're going through, and you're sitting by yourself in your room talking to your phone. By the way, that may not be the first take. And it might be the fourth take that I'm doing this because it was sort of the lighting was bad. And I put that on... Pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre- vulnerability for everyone to learn from. That's not vulnerability. That's broadcasting. Now go say those exact words to a person, which is way more difficult. And I think for us to practice true vulnerability, which is to sit with somebody, whether in pain or joy, which is to sit across from them, or to the minimum, minimum, pick up the telephone

versus a text and say, I just want you to know, I love you and I care about you. And you are one of my best friends. And I will be there for you in thick and thin no matter what. And I know that you would be there for me. And I just want you to know how grateful I am for this friendship and for you, right? Do that to somebody. Or sit in pain with them and saying,

I'm struggling. You and I have had a fight, and I am up every night because of it. It hurts me. And I don't know where it came from. The words you said to me the other day hurt me like a knife. Go say that to the person as opposed to broadcasting it, because that doesn't actually,

it gives you a salve that makes you feel a little bit better for the few minutes opposed to broadcasting it. Because that doesn't actually, it gives you a salve. It makes you feel a little bit better for the few minutes you've done it. Does it, or is it more for the other people on social media? I have to have subbed if it's a lie. Or a follow. I mean, that would be really cynical of us to say. But I have to believe it has something to do with it.

You're the optimist. I never said I was. Fair. I'm still cynical, though. Oh, yeah. You know, there, of course, there's some benefit. But the problem can call it down. Yeah. Yeah. There, of course, there's some benefit, but the problem is it's a short-term benefit. Whereas you know, you and I both know

that to get in the shit with someone, professionally, personally, to get in the shit with someone, almost always, you come out with clarity, better understanding, and usually much better relationship. Almost always. You know, struggle is some of the best thing that can happen in a relationship. Shared hardship actually releases oxytocin in our bodies.

Everybody's all about dopamine and oxytocin. And oxytocin comes from many, many reasons. Some healthy, some not healthy. But one of the healthy ways that we get oxytocin is shared hardship. Have somebody go take some Marines and put them in combat together. Those Marines will come back in love with each other. They will love each other. It's shared experience. Shared hardship in particular. Shared hardship, shared struggle, actually create strong bonds. If there's a hurricane that comes through, all of a sudden who you voted for doesn't matter at all, I got you, right? I got you.

I totally agree. I mean, do you spend, I mean, how much time do you spend on social media? You have a lot of followers and all that other jazz. Are you constantly looking at your phone? Are you constantly doing all that stuff? Like, what's your ratio? Well, I mean, I have all my notifications turned off on my telephone, except for texts and phone calls. I get zero notifications if I got an email, I get zero notifications if anybody posted or liked or anything on any social media ever. So I don't have that dopamine, ding, ding, I don't have it. But like anyone, I can go down a rabbit hole, even feeling a little bit down or lonely.

Of course, I go swiping for goodness. And my goodness, the algorithm on TikTok, oh my. I'll just spend 10 minutes and two hours later. You know, I tell you, but that's to me. There's some funny, talented, entertaining people out there. Amazing.

And they're brilliant and wonderful. And that algorithm is astonishing. It is astonishing. It is astonishing. It is astonishing. How good it is, and how it just feeds me everything I want to see better than anything else. But I'm also fully, like, I can't do it that often.

Like I know that if I open that TikTok app, I am fully aware that I am not in control of myself. 100%. I am fully aware that time will evaporate, and I know that I'm going to like, I'm going to like sit in bed and like, and all of a sudden, I'm going to stop because I'm falling asleep and I realize it's 1 o'clock in the morning. Totally.

So I know not to turn the app on, but it's, I would say that my social media interaction is mostly healthy only because I have all the notifications turned off. So I don't even know, I don't even, I don't even the buttons account of how many emails you have, I have none on my little envelope on my phone. Gosh, you're like, yeah, it's blank. It's blank, not because I don't have emails, it's because I only find out if I'm like, oh, I think I'll check my email now,

open up the email app and I seal the new emails. Oh, good. So I don't have notifications turned on. So you basically control your environment that way. So you know that you have a, that's you're taking away the ability to kind of go down those things. And my phone is always, my, the ringer is always turned off. It doesn't even vibrate.

So I literally don't know of anything's coming in unless I pick it up to look. So I don't have that dopamine thing. I make a practice of when I'm out with friends that I put my phone on a different seat. I put it out of, I don't put it on a table. I put it out of reach. I can't see it on purpose. On purpose. On purpose, because I understand the addictive qualities of the device.

And so, you know, it's like the first thing you do with an alcoholic is you take all the alcohol out of the house, because we just don't have that kind of willpower. It's not because they're weak, it's because none of us have that kind of willpower to resist. And so to think that we're so strong that we can resist the dopamine powers of our cell phones and social media, it's just wrong. Right.

So I put it out a site. That's a good idea. Or sometimes give it to my friend, and then can you carry my phone for me? That's a great idea, just because it's like, because we're living in that kind of world now, which is, that's why I don't know how we can, you know, we always find like, you know,

the pendulum swings, but because we're getting more and more addicted because there's more platforms, like every day there's a new platform that comes up and a new thing that happens, where do we come back to a place where we're kind of like, we're, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago, we didn't have this type of like same addiction,

where there wasn't social media. Well, I mean, there were other things to get addicted to. Well, we get addicted to alcohol. People are still doing that. The fans of those being sold right now. It's true. It's true. It's not like the world was so, you know,

let's not be polyannish, the world was perfect, and nobody had any addiction. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, should the world be perfect. And nobody had any addictions. No, no, no, no, but you're right. I mean, the amount of, I think, I can't remember the statistic I just read recently, is it debts by alcohol or just, we all know the amount of drinking that went up during COVID skyrocketing.

But I think debts by alcohol have also gone up. Did yours, like, what did you, did I die from alcohol? No, no, no, no, no. And from COVID, how did you tweak or modify your habits or your life at all like at all or I don't have to answer that question because I think all of our lives were teaked tweaked in model no no but like now that we've kind of come out the other end or other other way Oh, has anything remained yeah, like what have you done like what have you have you like did you kind of increase your fitness? Did you stop working as much? I want to know what you do every single day. I want to know what time you wake up,

how you wake up, what you eat, what you don't eat. One of the magical things that happened during COVID was my niece and nephew were little kids that I saw two or three times a month. Then I went to having family to know with them every single night. You know, and so my sister's family and I we We were back and forth between our two homes and we had family dinner every single night every family You mean during COVID you did that yeah, and so I loved it and We have tried as a family to preserve That as much as possible where we have Friday night a family to preserve that as much as possible, where we have Friday and I, sushi night, for example, as, you know, there's occasional exceptions where, you

know, they have a game where I'm traveling. But for the most part, that Friday and I, sushi night is sacred. I won't make plans because I got to have dinner with the kids. And I really like it. I really like it. I really like it. So I've tried to cling onto some of those things. I have waxes and wanes, but I've tried to maintain a better balance

of travel being away, because families become more important. I mean, it's always been important, but being present for family. You see family, your sister, your kid. My niece and nephew. Yeah, niece and nephew. Okay, I got to ask you a bunch of like leadership questions because that's, I have a bunch. What are the two most powerful success habits people should cultivate in order to go get ahead in life.

Good question. Number one is curiosity. The very difficult thing of replacing judgment with curiosity makes for good leadership. Curiosity also leads to humility. The best definition of humility I ever heard was a guy named Bob Gailer who said, don't confuse humility from meekness. He said, humility is being open to the ideas of others. You can have a big ego, but you can still be like, all right, let's hear your idea.

You know, as opposed to just shooting the idea down. Right. You don't have to agree with it, but you can be curious about it So I think replacing learning to replace curiosity Judgment with curiosity and and practicing curiosity makes you come keeps you humble You don't have all the best ideas for example other people are smart too, right? I think is one and the other one is Equally difficult practice to learn to say I don't know or I need help

um, I don't know, or I need help. I think are absolutely essential. Do you, you said, I mean, you talk about this a lot, about empathy, power of empathy, and that's like a key component for leadership. And that you've noticed that most powerful leaders have this. Good ones. The good ones.

It's a lot of powerful leaders. I was to say that word was not the right word, most of the good ones. Can you teach empathy or can someone learn to be more empathetic? Sure, sure. Absolutely. 100%. It is a practice. It is a skill like so many others. I think empathy, again, starts with curiosity. Somebody is underperforming, instead of labeling them stupid or lazy or unmotivated or snowflakes to ask the question, I wonder what's going on in their life. I hope they're okay. That's empathy. And then to actually say to them, are you okay?

Negative narratives are, they're dangerous at every level of a company, you know, sometimes, you know, you know, a rank and file will start a narrative about leadership. Their assholes, they don't care, and sometimes leadership starts a narrative about an employee, their stupid, their lazy, and the problems that will affect how we treat each other, and we'll start looking for evidence to validate our narratives. It's very easy to interrupt. You simply say, I wonder what else it could be. And it's important for, if you're with a team and you start shitting on leadership, somebody could say, I wonder what else it could be. Maybe they're under stress or maybe we don't know what's going on.

And same thing with leadership, which is in a group that somebody starts labeling somebody, or even if you're doing it by yourself, you know, and same thing with leadership, which is one in a group that somebody starts labeling somebody, or even if you're doing it by yourself, you say, I wonder what else it could be, I wonder what else is going on in their life, and you can make a list. So, so, you know, you know, they're lazy, they're still on the list, you know, that could be it, sure. Or maybe there's something going on in their personal life that we don't know about, maybe there's some family drama that they're dealing with that we don't know about. Maybe we've given them too much work. Maybe they're overworked and burned out. Maybe they're under-trained. They don't know what they're doing. We have a culture where it's too difficult to ask for help. It could be 50 things. It could still be the one

that you think, but it could be other things too. And the point is, is now when you talk to that person, you're operating with empathy. You're operating with curiosity. You know? So, yeah, of course it's practicable. It's practicable. I'm learnable. Yeah.

You get better at it, like anything. You do it more, it becomes second nature. Right. You know? What's up everybody? It is time to find the joy and drop the judgment and find our version of Happy and Healthy. I'm Lacey Green, and I'm inviting you

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That's bodywithani.com. When I feel when people are like leading, I think you talk about this too. Like there are people who are leaders and people who lead, and there's a big difference between the two, right? Can someone learn to be a good leader? Because I feel like, look at, you talk about,

let's talk about Elon Musk, for example, right? He's like a very powerful man, obviously. I mean, I wouldn't think he would be considered a great leader, but everybody does wanna work with him and be there and be around, people like to be around successful people. That's like human nature. So then how is it that, when I think you talk a lot about

if you have a why obviously that's your whole thing people that's when people work harder what they what they they want to that's when an organization does exceptionally well do you think that SpaceX or even Amazon or any of these people like that I can imagine those leaders Amazon or any of these people, I can't imagine those leaders having that type of, I guess they do have the vision, but they're not exactly necessarily great leaders. I guess there is a good. Well, let me ask you my own question. Yeah, I mean, we can talk about, you know, leadership has nothing to do with personality. Yeah. Steve Jobs is not the nicest guy in the world. Right. But you talk to people who worked there during this Steve Jobs days, that he pushed them to do the best work of their lives. People would show up with their fancy resumes or wherever else they worked. They'd be like, well, I built this and I invented that.

And they would say the same thing, which is, we don't care what you've done, we care what you're going to do. And so for people who like to be pushed to do better work, they loved working there. Right. You know, it's it's not it goes back to, you know, we do we share the same belief, which is it's not that culture is not for everyone. And and he, by the way, Steve Jobs invented a total of zero of the products that Apple made. He came up with none of them. Right. The ideas for those products came from within the teams. So, so he's not the genius because he came up with all the ideas. He was the genius because he pushed people to come up with ideas and and and he knew how to contextualize them and share them with the world. Right. understood that you understood what good looked like. So was he the nicest guy in the world? No. Was he a great leader?

Yeah. I mean, for heaven's sakes, after a multi-billionaire died who flies in private jets everywhere, he goes, you know, like he cannot relate to our lives. We cannot relate to his life after he died. People laid flowers at a retail store to mourn the loss of the CEO. Like just think about that for just one minute. Crazy. I know. Right? And that can only happen if someone

gives us something to believe in. If somebody gave us something to feel a part of, whether you're an employer or a customer or a spectator. So the evidence is demonstrated by the fact that he gave people something to stand for. Or to belong to. What very often happens to a lot of leaders is sometimes they start to believe their own press. They start to believe that because they've had a string of success that everything they do will be successful. It was described to me recently by a friend that you have a bag of balls of equal number

of red balls and blue balls. I'll change that one. Let's uh, red balls and blue balls. I'll change that one. Let's go with, let's go with red balls and green balls. Um, I love it. You have a dirty mind. Yeah. Uh, so red balls and very cool, we'll stay Christmas oriented. Uh, uh, uh, red balls and green balls.

And you know, you put your hand in and you pull out a red ball and you pull you in and then you pull out a red ball and you pull out your hand and you put and you put that Ed eight red balls in a row. Okay. And you're just like, I'm a freaking star. I'm like the red ball pro, except the opportunity for failure, the opportunity for pulling at the other go, now I've gone up the odds because it's equal number, right? And so that's kind of life, which is these these folks who had massive success, they keep pulling, what they're failing to recognize is failure

could be the next pull. And unfortunately, the good ones surround themselves with teams of rivals, people who disagree with them. And the ones who start to believe they're an hype and have gone off the deep end, surround themselves with people who only agree with them, or only people who agree with them, validating their genius every day. And that doesn't work well for the long term.

It doesn't work well. You actually said the word rival, not in the same way, but in your, I guess this was written a few years ago, the Infinite Game, but you do talk about worthy rivals. So, who is your worthy rival? I mean, I have a bunch, you know, worthy rivals. So, let's define what a worthy rival is first. Yes. I know the story you want me to tell.

So, there is another author who does what I do. He writes books, he gives talks, he's extremely smart. And, you know, I hate him. I hate him. My hatred for him is completely irrational. I'm aware of that. He's always been very civil to me when I've seen him at events, very kind. He never done anything to hurt me. I know he's a good guy. I just have a rational hatred. And as a result of my contempt, I'm very, very, very competitive with him. So I will regularly go on Amazon and look at his book ranking, and then I'll immediately look at my book ranking.

And if he's ahead, I'm angry, And if I'm ahead, I'm smug. Mind you, I check no one else's rankings. This is like, is if there's only two people writing books. I check no one else's rankings, just his. I'm competitive with him. We had the opportunity to speak at the same event. And I don't mean like me in the morning, him in the afternoon.

I mean like we were gonna be on the stage at the same time interviewed by, I'm gonna be interviewed. And the interviewer thought it would be fun if we introduced each other. And I went first. And I turned to him and I said, you make me really insecure. All of your strengths or all of my weaknesses and whenever your name comes up, I get really uncomfortable. And he turned to me and he said, funny, I feel the same about you. The reason I was so competitive with him and the reason I had this irrational

contempt and nothing to do with him, it had to do with me. Because his strengths show me my weaknesses, it's too difficult to look at myself and say that I'm weak here and it's much easier to say I hate him and I'm going to him. Right? Now, the funny thing is after that experience, there was a total catharsis. All of that negativity, all of that competitive spirit completely went away. And he and I now, friends and regularly, you know, promote each other and help each other.

Is hanging out together? We live in different cities, but yeah, if we're in the same place, we'll definitely hang out together. Um, and I, and this is what worthy rivals are. in the same place, we'll definitely hang out together. And this is what worthy rivals are. Worthy rivals are other players in the game whose strengths reveal to your weaknesses. And instead of trying to compete against them because you can't beat them, there's no such thing as winning

in this game. Like, what am I? There's like, what, I sell more books. Am I the winner? You know, no. Right. Means nothing. I pick an arbitrary thing.

What if it's social media following? Like, could be anything. What if it's social media following like could be anything? What if it's you're winning anyway like like who knows like you know, I mean like the point is it's stupid an arbitrary Right, it is a true he makes ten times more money than me am I winning or losing like like who the hell knows? What's your metric? It's stupid the point is the comparisons are stupid right? But what is valuable is that when you pick players who are better at one or many things than you are, that because their strengths reveal to your weaknesses, the opportunity is to either work on those weaknesses, to get better, to become a better player yourself, or to partner with them. Right. Because then those strengths and those weaknesses balance each other off.

They get each other. So I'm not competitive. I have no competitors, but I definitely have worthy rivals. People are really good at what they do, and I have such love and admiration for them. And I used to get insecure about it, but now I'm grateful because it helps me be a better player. So I'm a great believer in worthy rivals. And the same goes for companies, by the way.

For companies to compare each other, themselves to each other and say, we're better. Based on what? Revenue, profit, market share, a number of employees, like based on what? Like based on what time frame? This year, total, the next 10 years, like it's all arbitrary nonsense. Right.

Not to mention the fact that most companies are taken down not by the competitive they're obsessed with, but the one they didn't know of, right? You think my space even had any idea that Facebook even existed? You know, it doesn't happen. You think the big TV studios and movie studios were paying any attention to Netflix?

Exactly. You think the big three car companies were worried about what Tesla was gonna do to upset their marketplace? Like nobody's looking at the upstarts. They're looking at each other. So further reinforcing the folly of arbitrary competition in business or in life or in any sort of these infinite games.

So yeah, I'm a great believer in worthy rivals. We should have them because it makes us better. So is this person still worthy? Since you kind of have this catharsis, do you have something? He was my competitor before. Now he's my worthy rival. Now he's your, okay. Now I have absolute respect for him and there are things that he doesn't like, I could

do better, but there are, I have many. Do you and there are things that he doesn't like, I could do better. But there are, I have many. Do you have a competitor now that you look at? I have no competitors. All worthy rivals. I have many worthy rivals. Sometimes they're better at this one thing or they're better at these two things

or they're better at those things. And even when we do something at our company, like when we are gonna like, I mean, come up with anything, like we're gonna redo our website. Like it can be something mundane. We'd be like, okay, who are the worthy rivals? Like who's doing it really well that we want to learn from?

You know, so we always say can somebody worthy rival this? Go find somebody who's doing it better than we are. So we can learn. We do it all the time. I do think it's a healthy way to kind of keep, keep also keep yourself on your toes in a way without, yeah, of course. It's like how I still call it healthy competition,

when they why, you know. Problem is it has the word competition. Yeah, you don't like the word competition. You know, it's like if you have a mild melanoma or if you have stage for liver cancer, those things are both called cancer, but they're clearly not the same thing. Absolutely.

So if you use the same word, the problem is, it means the same thing. So, you know, so I don't like saying healthy competition because it's not competition. Right, you don't like the same thing. So, you know, so I don't like saying healthy competition because it's not competition. Right, you don't like the word competition. Word competition sets up a false game that this is a finite game of winners and losers. A competitor is someone to beat, right?

That's right. A competition has a winner and a loser. So let's not use those words because they're actually incorrect. There's no winning business. It doesn't exist. There's no winning healthcare, it doesn't exist. Nobody's no winning healthcare. It doesn't exist. Nobody declared the winner of career. It doesn't exist. Right. Your head or behind, but no one's ever the winner. Right. So what, give me a couple other

things that make someone a really strong good leader. Besides empathy, curious, is there anything else that you that that people can work on that they can kind of help? Like people who work on, that they can help, like people who are listening who are entrepreneurs who are now starting to lead a team of some kind. Anything else that you would think that would help people in that type of new position. Yes. Or somebody who's not new to the position, you know, there's a concept that has been lost

in our modern society and that is the concept of honor. We don't talk about honor anymore. Honor is nothing to do with trustworthyness or reliability or intelligence. Something very different, right? So an example of honor is when someone takes advantage of maybe you've had a string of bad luck. Let's say you've lost a bunch of clients and you're going through a really hard time and you need all the help that you can find.

And somebody on your team comes to you and says, I want to renegotiate my contract because somebody gave them some bad advice that you've got all the cards, you've got all the leverage, you should use it. So taking advantage when someone is hurting for self gain is dishonorable. That person may be smart. That person may be very trustworthy. That person may be reliable, but they are not honorable. Honour is about ethics, right?

And too often the standard these days is the law. It's like it's in breaking laws, like you know, a pharmaceutical company that raises the price of an essential drug, a thousand percent, fifteen hundred percent. It's not illegal. It is not illegal, but it is unethical. It is dishonorable. And I for one only want to work with people who have honor. We understand that I'd rather lose money in the short term and do the right thing than make money unethically or to put, to be be to act selfishly and take advantage of someone's pain or someone's

disadvantage that is dishonorable. And I choose to build my my business and be around people who are honorable. I think we need honor back in business. I think it's unmissing for a while because it's all become so selfishly driven. Yeah. It's honor is the opposite of selfishness. It is. Would honor be like integrity too, with that being the day. I think honor and clued integrity, I think you have to have, it's a component of, right?

Again, that person may have integrity until they decide to put themself first, you know, they out of integrity because they are, because they have all the leverage, quote unquote, you know? So I think, I think, I call it honor because that's what it is. So yeah, I think absolutely honor includes integrity.

Absolutely. One thing you said, I'm sure for everyone always probably says this to you all, that's a line about how to motivate people. Like you can either inspire them or you can manipulate them. Is it like something like that? There's two ways to motivate people. You can manipulate them or you can inspire them. Right.

Manipulation is easy, easier, and it's usually more immediate, the impact. And so we tend to rely on it. We see them business all the time. We attempt to coerce people with promotions, right? Buy one, get one, free. Right. Well, that's an manipulation, right? I won't get one free. Right. Well, that's an manipulation, right?

I don't really want it, but I'm getting the next one free, you know? We use fear, right? Right. You know, your children will die from drinking tap water, tune in at 11, right? Right. If you vote for the other party, crime will go up. You know, it's like that's, those are fear based. It's fear based.

It works, which really well. Even aspirational messages, every gym membership that has ever been sold is look what you could look like. You know, and some of them are funny and some of them are, you know, pretty unethical, but the point is manipulations work. They work in the short term. They become too expensive and too exhausting

over the long term. They actually do not work over the long term. The opposite is inspiration. It's harder, it takes more work. There are sometimes short term gains, but really you're doing it for long-term. When you inspire people, you get loyalty, you get trust, you get those kinds of things, which the other manipulations do not build at all. Q, name somebody, a leader that you've seen that does this very well, who you think is

a really good, strong, inspiring leader. Sure. Gary Ridge, who just recently retired and CEO from WD40, honorable guy. I know WD40 exactly. Barry Whamler is the company Bob Chapman, the CEO of Barry Whamler, super honorable, super inspiring, also lives with cause. You know, there are, there are lots of good examples of people who are, who are not famous. As if they're not social media, which is, they're generally not on social media, but they are, they are honorable and they give their people something to believe in. And they care about their people and their view,

their people as human beings. And they recognize that they, as leaders, have the responsibility to see those around them rise. They brace that awesome responsibility. That's what makes them great leaders. So I wanna, I have a few more minutes and I know I've been super generous with your time. So thank you, I appreciate it. No idea what time it is. Oh, I know. I don't know if I have been super generous with your time. So thank you, I appreciate it.

No idea what time it is. Oh, I don't know if I have been generous or not. Yeah, to be honest, you did do why I have no idea. I think it's been, I don't know how long, an hour and a half. So yeah, I guess it's been probably longer than you were anticipating. What has been this? I got free water.

You do. Believe me, you can get way more, there's way more where that came from. And I have snacks, I told you. Did you just do my snack? I'm mainly. No, I still have a snack afterwards. Thank you very much.

Okay, yes, I've got some healthy ones for you. Some of these things when I was going down the rabbit hole with you, which I have before, not just yesterday or the day before, there are all these little rules of success that I've seen you do and all these different montages like that are on YouTube.

And a few of them, these are the ones I really love. You say be the last to speak. I love that. Can you talk about that one? Yeah, that's a story about, that comes from a story about Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela is a very important leader

because different leaders of you differently, depending on where you go. But Nelson Mandela is universally regarded as a great leader no matter where you go. That's true. And he was asked by a journalist once, how did you learn to be a great leader? And he told the story of when he was a boy. He was actually the son of a tribal chief. And he said he remembered going to tribal meetings with his father and he remembers two things. One, they always sat in a circle and two, his father was always the last to speak.

And if you think about it, even well intentioned leaders, we come in and sit at the head of the table, you know, and we say to the team, okay, here's the problem we have, this is what I think we should do, but I wanna know what you think. Too okay, here's the problem we have. This is what I think we should do But I want to know what you think Too late you bias the room or you meet people feel like your their opinion doesn't matter as opposed to sitting down and saying here's the problem I want to know what you think and then Being good at having a poker face. You can ask questions, but not giving away if you agree or disagree and

At the end you can have the exact same opinion as you came in with. But two things happen. A, you actually get the benefit of more input. So you actually may change your point of view. And other people feel like they could contribute. I feel like they were contributing because they because they were right. So yeah, it is a fantastic practice to literally practice being the last to speak. That is, I love that one. It's such a good, I think that's such a great one. Outdo yourself. Yeah, I mean, the only true competitor in the infinite game is yourself. It doesn't matter if you beat another player in the game. The question is, are you outdoing yourself?

It's compared to like, I get a kick out of like the Olympics, right? So these are the most elite athletes in the world. Yep, and you know, maybe there's a let's say there's a skier an ice skater And they got the gold medal, but if you go look at their routine, they fell But it just so happened to the person who got silver fell twice, right? Are they the best? You know skier ice skater or whatever, you know, in the world? No, in this competition, they were better than that person that day. Right? And so I think what, and that's a finite game, you know, as a beginning, middle, and end to that game, it's an actual competition. In our careers, there's no beginning, middle, and end until you reach the end of your career. And then you don't win career.

Like you didn't, you know. And so the goal is not to try and outdo other people. The goal is to outdo yourself. How am I a better leader, a better follower? And by the way, the best leader is the best followers. All the best leaders that I've ever met believe that they're in service to something even bigger than themselves. The best leaders are the best followers.

They don't believe that the buck stops here. Even the Pope feel is in service to something bigger than himself. He's not actually the end-top end-all being. The best leaders, and even the ones I mentioned, Gary Ridge and Bob Chapman, both of them believe they're there's a higher calling, both of them believe there and service to something even bigger, even if it's just looking after people and making them feel like they belong.

Right. So I don't use the term follower and leader as a hierarchy. Because leaders can happen at every point of an organization at the top of the organization, you better be a follower. That's great. But you never heard anyone say that actually. That's true. Yeah, but it's true. Yeah. And so I think the, yeah, I think that that's true, which is the game that we're in as to outdo ourselves. And we wish everybody else the best of luck. You remember two people can both be

wildly successful in their career simultaneously. In business, two companies who sell the same thing for about the same product, about the same price of that, the same quality, can both be wildly successful simultaneously. Like, there is no winner. It's a joke. It's a false construction. And so why not make our products, our service,

our work better than we were yesterday? Like, that's the goal. I think I saw, I think you talked with a lot of your speeches actually about like, when you walk into Apple, or I don't know if you actually did it, or when it was like Microsoft, speeches actually about like when you walk into Apple or I don't know if you actually did or when it was like Microsoft and like people either focused on what the competition was doing and that kind of like derailed their business versus like focusing on themselves and thinking what they're doing, how they're can be better, how they can... Back in the Steve Balmer days, Steve Balmer was

obsessed with beating Apple. Right. And he sort of very publicly said, you know, and pushed his people to make a better iPod. Like, we're going to make the people, we're going to beat Apple at their iPod. And Apple wasn't competing against Microsoft, they didn't care. They're doing themselves. And so, congratulations, it's true. At some point, arguably, Microsoft's Zoom actually was better than Apple's iPod, but for the fact that a couple years later, Apple invented the iPhone.

That's right. Rendering both the iPod and the Zoom completely obsolete. So it makes no sense to try and make a better product if your competition's not even playing the same game. Exactly. Okay, one more. The stack the deck, it's your favorite. Yeah.

Yes. So the best way to understand that is, I don't believe in the concept of strength and weaknesses. Everything has context. I believe we have attributes, we have characteristics that we have to know. And in some contexts, those attributes are strength and in sometimes their weaknesses. So I'll give you the example that I like to use all the time because it's funny is I am chronically disorganized. I'm very disorganized, right?

You are? Terribly, yeah. And I've always thought of this as a weakness. I mean, what are your weaknesses? I'm disorganized, right? So I was at a networking event many years ago, the early days of my career, and I met a guy and he was like, Simon, you're fantastic, would love to work with you, here's my card. And if I was organized, I'd be texting from the cab on the way home or emailing the next day when I

get to work, you know, of course, but I'm disorganized, I lost the business card almost immediately, right? Two weeks later, I found the business card at the bottom of a briefcase, and so I emailed him, I said, I don't know if you remember me, we met two weeks ago, I found the business card at the bottom of a briefcase. And so I emailed him. I said, I don't know if you remember me. We met two weeks ago, you know, I'd love to reconnect. And he wanted to work with me more because he thought I was busy. He thought there was such high demand for me. Yes, that's why he took so long. Right, that's why he took so long.

So it's being disorganized to strength through a weakness. The answer is it depends. In that context, it was actually a strength. In different context, when somebody says, I need you to get this done by this time, it can be a liability. So what stacking the deck means is putting yourself in situations where your attributes are that you're in the right place that make you strong and avoiding the places that make you weak. So for example, if you're bad at math, don't do jobs that require lots of math. Right? Yes. I know it sounds trite, but it's sometimes that silly. Like I love working with others. I love working on teams, right?

And so when a project comes up, I always make sure that I have a group that I can work with because I know I'll do better work. If I work by myself, it's more stressful and the work is a lower standard. And so I know that about me. I know that I have a, I like working with people. So I stack the deck.

I try very hard to work at least with other one other person or to work on a team to complete a project, right? Right. As opposed to leave this to me, I'll get this done by myself. Some people, that is their strength to work by themselves, not me. Right. So again, I try and stack the deck by working with people as often as possible when I have difficult things to do.

So you don't like the word strength or weakness. What word did you say you like? You like? I mean, we use strength and weakness because it is relative. Yeah. But the point is, it's not that I'm so anti-the-words, it's more like recognize that it is relative. What are your, okay, sit in them for strength. What are your, like, because what am I, what am I, what are my characteristics and attributes that I have? Yes. So I'm, I like team, I like them for strength. What are your like because what am I what am I what are my characteristics and attributes that I have?

Yes, I'm I mean, I like team. I like working with somebody. Yeah, your team player. I'm a team player. Yeah, sometimes it's strength sometimes a weakness. What other I think out loud sometimes it's strength sometimes a weakness, right? You know, I I think, sometimes too quickly, right? Sometimes a strength, sometimes a weakness. Sometimes things need more consideration, right? So none of these things are, our advantages or disadvantages depends on the context. They're not inherently strong or weak.

And I think we make that mistake. We label, we think we say things about ourselves and we label them strong or weak, which is, and then what happens if somebody's Look at all their strengths and look at all my weaknesses. Now we're comparing ourselves and we're just throwing our confidence But in the right context, all of your weaknesses have strengths and in the wrong context, all of your strengths are Liabilities. You have a big ego that guys great in the wrong context. It's all it's it's it comes across as a it's Conceit, right, you know or Or excessive, it's, it comes across as a, it's conceit. Right. You know, or, uh,

or, or excessive, you know, um, so, yeah, I, I just think we have to stop judging whether something is strong or weak and just label what it is, what the behavior is, what the attribute is. Do you watch TV? Of course. What is your favorite TV show? It depends on, you know, it depends? Depends on the context. Depends on the context. Depends on the context. Exactly. I love the Great British Bake Off. You like that show?

Love. Love. To me, that is an embodiment of what life should be, which is a competition where we help each other. How good is that? They're competing. There is a winner. People get thrown off the show every single episode.

Yeah. And if it were an American show, they're building all of this drama. There is a winner. Yeah. People get thrown off the show every single episode. Yeah. And if it were an American show, they building all of this drama and like this person hurt me and, ah, because that's what we do in America, we make it a competition. Well, they're competing against each other and they help each other. Yeah. I mean, that's what, to me, the beauty of that show is it's sort of like what I imagine the world should be like.

That's a big battle act. Okay, what's your favorite movie? I mean, I'm a huge Star Wars fan. So, you know, I like the Star Wars franchise. I like many of the TV shows that that franchise has produced and a lot of the movies too. What's your favorite book? That's a harder one for me, because I don't read much.

Do you listen to books? No, I don't. I have a pretty bad case of ADHD and so I love the idea of books. Yeah. But I struggle to read them and everybody thinks I'm really well read. Yeah, that's exactly what I would have thought. I joke that I've written more books than I've read, which is true. Really? I love that you said that. And I carried a lot of shame about it for a long time because you know, we all think we have to be in love that you said that. And I carried a lot of shame about it for a long time because we all think we have to be readers to get ahead in the world or to be smart. So I hid the fact for many years that I didn't read books.

I love buying books. I love the idea of books. It's not that I'm anti, it's just I struggle with it. And so I've read some of a lot of books. That's exactly. You do. I of a lot of books. Exactly. You too. I started a lot of books. And I have stacks of books next to my bed of which I intend to get them one day.

One day. But yeah, I prefer, I learn from conversations and talking to people because I struggle to read. Do you listen to podcasts besides your own maybe or? I mean, again, it's one of those things like I never know when I mean sure I've listened to episodes here and there but I It's not really what you're no so I should I like the idea of it again Like because you how often do you do your podcast? We we have seasons

So we do it once a week you do once a week when we're when we were in season Yeah, and then what so what do you do when you're, yeah. And then what, so what do you do when you're not traveling and doing speaking? Like, what, what do you do for fun? I love the arts. Okay. So I'm, I love making art and I love seeing art. Are you an artist? I take photographs yeah. Oh. And, but I like visiting. I like going to museums and galleries and performances and concerts and I miss New York. I miss the fact that there was so much talent everywhere in New York.

I definitely miss New York the art scene. But I love art. I'm do an incredible amount of Lego. You do? What's your, what's your niece and nephew? Oh, they let them do it Lego. You do? With your niece and nephew? No, they let them do it themselves. You do it really? No, of course I occasionally do it with them.

Yeah, I do do Lego with them, but. I have Lego upstairs if you want to use that. I do Lego by myself a lot. Like I have stacks and stacks of Lego sets that I pull them out and I do one. You do puzzles too? I like puzzles a lot, yeah. I like Liberty puzzles, you know, I pull them out and I do one. You do puzzles too? I like puzzles a lot, yeah. I like Liberty puzzles, you know those.

Which ones are the Liberty ones? Oh my God, that the best. Which ones are those? I thought I knew, but like, yeah, no, they're the best. What makes them so the best? They're not normal jigsaw puzzles, they're wood and they're cut out in all these wonderful different shapes.

And so usually when you do a jigsaw puzzle, first you do the frame, you can't, because there's no There's no frame pieces like they don't exist. You have to It's kind of they're kind of they're magical. Yeah Liberty puzzles are the best. Oh, wow I love that. Do you know how to do a Rubik's cube just because I would think you'd be good at it? No, I mean, I'm plenty nerdy, but I think the I think people's assumptions like I'm a big reader that does Rubik's cubes And you know, it's like it it's so funny how, yeah. Yeah, that's why I want to know who you are.

No, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna rub his cubes. No, like, as- But I like New York Times spelling bee, I love word games. I love, I love scramble. Ordle, I love scramble. I went, I was, I had my wordal phase, and I got, I'll be honest with you, I got,

I got sick of it. What, the New York Times bought it? Like, they started doing like words that didn't even know were words. Like it stopped being fun. Exactly. You know, it's just supposed to be a silly fun game that takes five minutes like stop. You know, so actually stop doing wordle. I do do the New York Times spelling bee which I love. I do love cross repulsors. I love Scrabble. I love word games. I love boggle. Do you have a boggle? Oh my god. I'm playing boggle in years. I love boggle. Oh my god. It's a very noisy game But I like it. It's the best game ever. It's great. Boggles great. Boggles the best game ever.

I'm into the inspired man, I want to play boggle now. Right, I played all the time. I mean, I hate to say it, but I love that game. Yeah, no, I love boggles. That's like one of my favorite pastimes. Yeah. And then, so like when you were younger, this is just my curiosity about you.

Like when you were young before all this, how were you as a teenager? Like were you always very thoughtful? We always optimistic. Were you always optimistic? Were you? I mean, you'll have to ask my friend, million friends, you know? Nerdy and Dorky is probably what my sister would say.

You know, I was. Nerdy and Dorky, I mean, based sports. I mean, I was athletic, but not an athlete. I played, like I ran, but not on the team. And I played tennis, but not on the team. You know, like I was athletic. Still I am athletic, but I'm not an athlete. Were you played tennis, but not on the team. You know, like, I was athletic,

I still had an athletic, but I'm not an athlete. Were you a good student? Good enough. Yeah. I wasn't like straight-age great student. I mean, that was fine. Are you still in the brand corporation as an advisor? Yeah, I think I'm still on the,

I haven't worked with them in a while, but yeah, I think I'm still in the system. Yeah. Sounds pretty good, anyway. Brand is cool, yeah. That's amazing. Brand is a, yeah. Rand is amazing. Rand is a big, very cool think tank. And I've had amazing meetings and amazing

difficult conversations. I love people who are smarter than me. I think that to me, that's like, I don't read, but I do love spending time with people who are much smarter than me. I'm invigorated by. Who is one of the people that you thought was like, who you're really impressed by,

who like just really you were inspired by, that you spent time with? I mean, there's a long list. Just give me one or two. Well, there's names that you don't know. I mean, like, there's a lot of folks in the military who are some of the smartest people I know. Right.

And see the world in a way that nobody else doesn't ask questions in the way that nobody else does. And if I can spend all my time with them, I would be much smarter. Do you have a mentor or did you have a mentor? I think it's important that mentors. I mean, I don't have a mentor anymore. I mean, I have a group of people

that I call on a regular basis. If I'm stuck or I can't figure something out, I believe in sounding boards. I think anybody who thinks that they have to make every decision by themselves is setting themselves up for eventual collapse. I think it's very important to get alternative points of view, to get counsel, to be open to the council, as opposed to fighting with them to prove that you're right.

And just bounce ideas. And I don't make big or difficult decisions without talking to somebody first. My sister and I are a very good team. And rarely do I make difficult decisions without checking in with her first. She's a very good, she's a very good, very good sounding board, very talented.

That is so nice. She worked with you at the company. Yeah, we worked together. There's three partners in my sister, Sarah, Sarah is one of them. Oh, that's so nice. And my other partner, and like, we just like the three of us,

I've like the most complimentary skill set. It's really, it's very special. It's been looking for something like that for a long time. That's really nice. I love that. I think basically I've taken up like hours of your time, probably like two. You're falling asleep over there. Thank you. I don't know what else to say. You've been phenomenal. You've been a phenomenal guest. Thank you. And I'm so thankful and happy and grateful that we, that you did this because like I said, I've been, you've been requested so many times.

I can't, I just show you my like list of like emails and DMs with people like, how come you don't, have you never had Simon's in? I go, so many. Very nice, thank you. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

I really, I love meeting you and I appreciate it. A lot of fun, thank you. Thank you. Bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I want to tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your confidence

to its highest level ever and taking your business right there with you. Don't believe me, I'm gonna go ahead and share some of the reviews of the show so you can believe my listeners. I have been a longtime fan of Heather's no matter what phase of life I find myself in, Heather seems to always have the perfect gems of wisdom that not only inspire, but motivate me into action. Her experience

and personality are unmatched, and I love her go-getter attitude. This show has become a staple in my life. I recommend it to anyone looking to elevate their confidence and reach that next level. Thank you! I recently got to hear Heather at a live podcast taping with her and Tracy Hayes, and I immediately subscribe to hear Heather at a live podcast taping with her and Tracy Hayes and I immediately subscribe to this podcast. It has not disappointed and I cannot wait to listen to as many as I can as quick as I can. Thank you Heather for helping us build confidence and bring so much value to the space. If you are looking to up your confidence level, click creating confidence now. summer special at the Kia Summer Sales event with a dependable Kia SUV or powerful sedan.

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