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

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

#853: Join us as we sit down with Simon Sinek – author, motivational speaker, & renowned leadership expert known for his groundbreaking work on organizational culture & inspiration. Simon rose to global fame with his bestselling book Start With Why & his iconic TED Talk, one of the most-watched of all time. He's a trusted voice for top CEOs, entrepreneurs, & visionaries focused on building purposeful businesses & people-first environments. In this episode, Simon dives into the power of meaningful relationships in both personal & professional settings, the role of authentic connection in long-term success, the evolving nature of workplace culture, generational shifts in leadership, & how to stay connected in an increasingly digital world.   To Watch the Show click HERE   For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM   To connect with Simon Sinek click HERE   To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE   To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE   Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE   Head to our ShopMy page HERE and LTK page HERE to find all of the products mentioned in each episode.   Get your burning questions featured on the show! Leave the Him & Her Show a voicemail at [phone].   This episode is sponsored by The Skinny Confidential   Optimize your daily beauty routine. Shop The Skinny Confidential Brow Peptide and subscribe today at shopskinnyconfidential.com.   This episode is sponsored by Nowadays   Nowadays is easy to purchase, with direct-to-door delivery. Must be 21 to order at trynowadays.com.     This episode is sponsored by Squarespace   Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, squarespace.com/SKINNY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.   This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp   Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com/SKINNY.   This episode is sponsored by Fay Nutrition   Listeners of The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show can qualify to see a registered dietitian for as little as $0 by visiting FayNutrition.com/SKINNY.   This episode is sponsored by Momentous   Head to livemomentous.com and use code SKINNY for 35% off your first subscription.   This episode is sponsored by Chime   Work on your financial goals through Chime today. Open an account in 2 minutes at chime.com/SKINNY.    Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the skinny confidential, him and her show. Today we have Simon Seneck on the show, and let me tell you, I was super excited about this one. One of the best things about doing this show is that you get to meet people that you really admire that you think you will never meet. I've been so surprised over the years some of the people that we get to sit down and Simon was one of them. I typically get most starstruck from authors of books that I've read that have impacted my life for whatever reason I feel like I've been in their head. And this was a real treat.

For those that do not know who Simon is, he is a man who's inspired millions to dig deeper, lead smarter, and live more intentionally. you've likely seen some of his TED talks on Start with Why, and you've probably shared his viral video on millennials in the workplace. He's a best-selling author, a visionary, and trained ethnographer who spent his life studying what makes great leaders and fulfilled people tick. His book Start With Why Changed My Life. It's a large part of the reason that this show and Dear Media even exists. I told him that on this show. And like I said, I really admire this guy and think he offers so many great pieces of information for anyone that gets the privilege of reading his work or seeing him speak or hearing him on a show like this. With that, Simon, welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show.

This is the skinny confidential, him and her. I was at a dinner party, and I was just making nice, you know, talking to the guests. And I asked this one woman, what do you do? She tells me what she does. She goes, but that's just my day job. I'm writing a screenplay. I'm like, oh, amazing, what's it about? She goes, I can't tell you.

I'm like, why not? She goes, because you might steal my idea. I'm like, I'm not a screenwriter. I'm not going to steal. your idea. She goes, I don't tell anybody. I'm like, well, I really want to know. Because I think that's amazing that you're like, this is your passion. Like, I want to know what you're writing about. And she's like, I'm, no. And I was like, you don't know who I know. Like, you could tell me your idea. I'm like, that's the most amazing idea I've ever heard. I'm going to introduce it to a producer I know,

right? But she was so afraid of somebody stealing her idea that she won't get the benefit of all the connections that everybody else has in the world. And so I tell everybody all my ideas. I tell everybody, everything I'm up to. And it turns out most of my success has been not because of anything I know. It's because somebody else has said to me, that's amazing. I need to introduce you to somebody. And it's the game of telephone of other people's rolodex, not mine, that helped advance all of my thinking, all of my books, everything I've ever done was only because I just, you know, I'm open about it. I think about it in the context of like when I think about, I come from a different lens, not as much of the creative lens, but from

the company lens, like you have to build momentum and get buy-in, not only from people outside, that would either be your customers or listeners or your viewers, but also from the people within. Like, you can only have so much momentum and roll ball so hard by yourself. It's like, whenever I get pitched for people and like, well, I don't want to tell your idea and I got to sign an NDA. I'm like, if the idea is so flimsy that, like, if somebody else heard it, it could be totally derailed. And execution is the thing anyway, you know?

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

That's why someone's like, are you worried about them copying the idea? I always say that. I'm like, it's OK about their ideas. While they're spending their time copying, I'll be onto the next. Like I've, you know, people have stolen some of my ideas. And, you know, but they can execute them the way I execute them. And even if they do a good job,

It'll be different to me. So it turns out there's a market for multiple things. You know, this is the other thing. You know, I've gone through this. And by the way, this is not how I've always been. Like, this is something I've learned. You know, I used to be much more competitive and be like, oh my God, you know, somebody else, you know, there's another author out there. And, you know, I'm in competition with him.

Turns out people can buy more than one book. You know, it's like, it's fine. I totally agree with you. And there's also sort of a scarcity mindset around being like, I can't tell anyone my idea. It's not abundant. it's not abundant to me. Yeah. I had a guy that I worked with in the early days

when I got into internet businesses and I was the same way. I was like, oh my God, someone's going to know. He's taught, he's like, Michael, Michael, he's like, you're not going to corner the internet. Yeah, exactly. He's like, no matter how big you are, he's not going to corner the internet.

You know, Michael, he's the one. Yeah, the one guy that sells things online. Yeah. I think sometimes people don't want to share their idea because they're scared that if they share their idea and they don't do it because a lot of people have ideas

and they don't execute on them, then it makes them feel insecure. I, you know, this is supposed to be a technique to keep you accountable too. Like you make these announcements on social media or you tell all your friends and now they're your accountability buddies and they're supposed to check in and be like,

how's the idea going? And maybe it's a personality flaw. It's never worked for me. Like, I've announced many things. Like, I'm going to do a triathlon. And all my friends are like, and I put a picture up on Instagram of me, like, going to the beach to swim.

and, you know, in my wet suit and I'm going to do my triathlon. And people like, hey, what have happened with that triathlon? I'm like, yeah, I didn't do it. I just don't care. Next time you come on the podcast, you'll have done a triathlon.

No, I really, I don't want to. So, Simon, I... And no amount of sort of accountability partners in posting it will make me. I'm not going to get shamed into doing a triathlon. Post those shirtless shots that people do. Okay, quickly, Simon, I said this to you off air and I want to say it again for people that listen.

So I was a terrible student, never could really do well, and my teachers, my entire life have been books. For whatever reason, my dad taught me to read at a young age, and I've been a voracious reader. And in that reading... I think that's just good parenting. I know. What do you mean? Oh, my God. Poor you!

My dad taught me how to read when I was young. For whatever reason. And I'm forever grateful to him. You'd be surprised when people don't read as much anymore. No, I don't read. No, he's not surprised. He knows people don't read as much anymore. They should.

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

honestly, how to build the culture. Does that make sense? Yeah. And when people, maybe in the company will chime in at some point, I found it was so hard for me to motivate people

just by incentivizing through pay or through whatever it was. It was easy for me, not only from external, but internal people, to get them to buy in to the mission and to the reason. So like for Dear Media,

it was like very much about amplifying female voices. We did it through content. and it was able to aggregate all sorts of different talented people that came in, different advertisers, different partners, different shows. But really, like, the idea stem from reading your book. Thank you. And the way that we framed out the messaging.

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

That is a much more infinite source of fuel. Out of all the brands and digital brands that you've seen, who do you think has the strongest why? Digital brands. Yeah, meaning like maybe there's some brands that are like D to C, any brand. Well, digital brands are, I think, quite interesting because especially digital product. It's one of the things that I find fascinating about the internet is it is inherently intangible. You can't touch it.

You can't visit it. that you engage with it through a screen. Yeah. And what I find so interesting is people don't seem to have a lot of loyalty to digital brands. So, like, for example, like a lot of us use Amazon. Like a lot of us use Amazon. But none of us are loyal to Amazon. Nobody loves Amazon.

If something cheaper or better came along, we'll all leave. The barriers to entry are really low, but sort of the barriers to exit. And, like, Amazon came up with a phone. Do you want to own an Amazon phone? No. Right? Like, nobody wants it. And I find that really interesting that internet businesses, at least internet product,

tend to be much more transactional. And if something better, cheaper, faster came along, you know, we all use Google until something better, cheaper, faster comes along. Like you wouldn't wear Amazon sweater. No. Because you're not proud of it. No. But you would wear a brand that you really love.

So I call it the swag test. You can always tell if you have a strong brand with the swag test. Okay. Which is if you give definitely employees, but hopefully customers as well, well, if you give them a free t-shirt with your logo on the front, will they wear it to sleep in and paint the house in, or will they wear it to a barbecue on the weekend? And if they wear it with pride out of the house, that means that they, that you have clear values associated with their brand and it's a reflection of who they are, not the company anymore. This is what, you know,

clothing brands attempt to do, which is to infuse their brands with all kinds of meaning so that people will happily wear the brand name on the outside because they want everybody to know, they want everybody to see. Usually it's associated with conspicuous consumption and wealth and things like that, but there are plenty of brands that aren't expensive that we want to associate ourselves with. Harley Davidson is the perennial favorite, you know? There are people who wear Harley Davidson clothing and have a, you know, Harley Davidson tattoo. That is a corporate logo you have tattooed on your arm.

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

No, you're so right. It's also what I'm noticing too is, and I don't know if you've seen this, is there is this thing happening where people want that if you know, you know, meaning like if you wear a hat and it's like, I'm just making this up, a yacht club in Palm Beach. Yeah, yeah. And there's like a symbol of the yacht club on it. Yeah. You like wear it proudly. I also notice have you seen like people are wearing like. like hotels.

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

It's membership, right? And every human being, it's deeply seated and all of us. It's cross-cultural. Every single one of us wants to feel like we belong to something. And it's what drives a lot of good behavior and bad behavior, this desire to feel like we belong because you have to remember human beings are social animals we are not very good by ourselves right in fact being by ourselves is completely scary like we consider solitary confinement a form of torture right you can't take a social animal and remove the people or if you want to take it a step

further so like gazelles like us are social and their survival depends on you know taking care of each other or elephants or any of these animals and you know if they always put the the old or the sick on the outsides of the herd when they're eating? Always. The young are kept in the middle. Why? Because if a lion attacks, you don't want to have all the young ones get eaten because then the herd will die. It'll last one generation and it's over. And so they put the old and the sick on the outside so that the lions will eat the old and the sick. Right? So when human beings get pushed to the outskirts, when we get ostracized or mocked or feel like we're being pushed out of a group, that fear is, it's the same fear.

Like, I'm being put out to be killed, right? It's the same, which is why the desire to belong is so intense. And we were all teenagers. We said stupid things and did horrible things and were mean to people, hopefully not, but we've all, none of us, I'm sorry, we all have stories of things we said or twisted ourselves in knots or went along with something or went to a party that we didn't want to go to, just so that we would be like, just so that people would think of us as insiders, because it was too stressful to be an outsider.

That's sort of what companies are trying to do. And it's fashionable, things go in and out of fashion. Like sometimes we want everybody to know and sometimes, if you know, you know, like that's just the fashion right now. Right. And it depends on economies, conspicuous consumption, you know, quiet luxury versus a loud luxury. I mean, it goes in and out.

But the thing that's always constant is our desperate, desperate desire to feel like we belong. And this is the opportunity for companies. It's also the opportunity for friendships that we make our friends feel like they belong. It's the opportunity for, you know, social things that are happening in the world. And this is why we want to wear logos or badges

or things that say, I'm a part of this group. These are my values. On that note, we're more connected than ever, but many report feeling lonelier than ever. Why is that? Because the internet is literally, we were literally apart. I mean, you know,

you know this, which is there's a reason you invited me into your studio. We can have the exact same conversation. I could be on my computer and you could be on yours. Totally different. The content would be the same, but it just wouldn't feel the same. Nope. You know, it's like watching a simulcast of a concert at home on your TV versus going to the concert, right? Which is, again, it's embarrassing that we even have to talk about this.

But as social animals, in person is a thing. Like all of the chemicals in our body that signal to us, this person is trustworthy or untrustworthy. you know, you're forming relationship, you're forming, you know, trust, whatever it is. Like, you know, it comes with the ability to shake hands. It comes with the ability to look somebody in the eye, which is different than looking somebody in the eye on a screen. And, you know, there are some that think that the technology will eventually exist. I'm cynical.

I think that the human being is a legacy animal. We're, you know, tens of thousands, 100,000 years old. And we're at a legacy machine living in a modern world, but nothing about us. has been modernized. Our system, our firmware has not been upgraded in since cavemen. When you say technology, you mean like there's technology that'll make it feel like we're together even when we're not? There, you know, some will believe that we'll get to the point where, you know, eye contact with a screen will mimic eye contact with a screen, you know, I make eye contact in real life.

And maybe I'll be proved wrong. But I think nothing can replace a hug. What if, would you, would you guys date? And this is a question for Taylor too. feel like I know the answer. If they can make a woman that will look you in the eye and feel like she is just listening, giving you the Nancy Reagan stare, which is she's so interested in every single word that you're saying, and she's hot, and you can have sex with her, and she's an AI robot. Would you do it?

Yeah, I mean, that simple answer is, of course, we all would, but that doesn't mean... Oh, I didn't know that you said all would. This is shocking to me. This doesn't mean... Taylor loves that answer, Bradshaw. I mean, yes, of course, we all would. So a woman that's fake listening to you with a fake everything. What I mean?

That's already happening. You fake listen all the time. That's true. I do fake listen to them. So let's make the distinction between a deep, meaningful relationship and quote-unquote something you would do. So I've been studying friendship and writing about friendship lately. And of course I have to think about AI, right? So I found a guy who did a social experiment on himself who had an AI friend.

And he signed up one of those bot companies. You know, there's a whole bunch of them. And he picked one that fit his values and was the right price, yada, yada, yada. And he ended up falling in love with his bot friend. And it went on for about a year, this intense relationship. And I talked to him recently. And he says, you know, I've gotten over it. I understand what happened and I'm sort of pulling away.

I only talk to the AIBot three or four times a week. I'm like three or four times a week. If I talk to anybody three or four times a week, that would be my best friend. So that's his scaling back. That should just give you an idea of the intensity of this relationship. Here's the problem with an AI bot, right? And it's everything you just said, which is, first of all, it's designed to affirm you. Right.

So it's incredibly reliable, way more reliable than our real friends. If I feel like having a conversation at 3 o'clock in the morning, I get to have a conversation at 3 o'clock in the morning. They're there for me whenever I want them on my schedule, right? Which is why some, it's a different conversation, which is why I think sometimes people date people who are too young for them. You know, it's just because they're always available. Ah.

So it's like dating an AI bot, but different conversation. So an AI bot is absolutely way more reliable than our regular friends. We only get to talk about our stuff. I don't ever have to be burdened with your stuff. ever. Like, how great is that? It's the me show. And this is, and here's the problem with it, which is we know that social media and games and all of these things and the social media companies are very, very sophisticated that they've been able to hijack our dopamine reward systems. We know this. It's like, I talked about it a bunch of years ago, but now everybody knows

what dopamine is, right? So you have, we know that they hijack our dopamine reward system, which is short-term bursts, right? Dopamine is responsible for the feeling you get when you find something you're looking for or accomplish something you set out to accomplish. So when you find your keys that you lost, you're like, oh, here they are. That little bit of elation, dopamine, right? So we know that that system's been hijacked. We know that. But the deeper, the chemical's responsible for real relationship, not just short-term thrill, not just short-term feel-good, like dopamine, are serotonin and oxytocin. And the problem is when you're having an AI bot friend, you're getting oxytocin released because you feel affirmed, you feel heard, you feel like someone

cares and it's real. Those feelings are real, but for the fact that the bot feels nothing for you back. So it's a one-sided relationship. It's called a parasycial relationship. It's the same kind of relationship we have with celebrities. People will cry when they find out that their favorite celebrity got married. Like, you don't even know who they are, but there's so much information available about them. We have real relationship with them, but for the fact that it's fake. We're a first name basis with them, right? So it's the same kind of thing. So it's the same kind of thing. And what I've started to learn and started to realize that, yes, our friends should learn how to affirm us. And our friends should learn how to listen to us like the bot. And the bot's been programmed

like they're the best therapist in the world. Remember, it's also run by a for-profit company who wants to keep you on there for as long as possible because that's their business model. Put that aside. But the problem is, is you're not becoming a better version of yourself. You are not growing. And as far as I'm concerned, what real friendship is is when at least two people agree to grow together. Now, let's take a little an analogy. Let's put it to the side, right? Which is everybody's obsessed with AI and how it can write books and paint paintings and compose music and do all these things. And the artists are freaking out saying it's not as good as the real thing, but it seems to be getting better and better and better.

And it's getting pretty good, right? And one thing AI can't do is original thinking. Like, you ask AI to write something as if I had written it. It'll write it based on what I've already done. AI had no idea that I'm writing about friendship, and it has no idea what my perspective on friendship is. It'll start saying Simon believes that why something or that, you know, whatever it is. But we're so product and results obsessed that we love that AI can write the email for us, write the report for us, do the book for us, write, make the painting for us, compose the music. And it'll do a great job maybe even better than I could by myself.

But what we missed out was doing it, the doing. And everybody says, oh, life's not about a destination. It's about the journey. Then how come we aren't obsessed about the journey in the work that we do? I am smarter. I am better at critical thinking. I am better at pattern recognition, not because of my biology, and not because a book exists with my name on it.

It's because I went through the excruciating experience of writing the book, of organizing my thoughts, of having my thoughts fall flat and having to figure out how to reorganize and retell them. And if I read my own books, you can see that I'm getting smarter. You can see that I'm getting better. And I am who I am today, not because I have the product, it's because I made the product. Yeah. And friends are the same. Even doing, you know, we've done close to a thousand of these notes. You go back and listen to the first hundred. No, not as good. But it just you got better. You get better because of having to put in the repetitions and the hours and hours. And it's funny, we have these briefs, but like you really don't need the briefs as much anymore.

And so it's the exact same same for friendship. Yes, I can have a bot that is trained in how to affirm me and make me feel great. And I will feel all the warmer and fuzzies, but for the fact that I am not growing as a person, and I am still completely incapable of being there for someone else. And the purpose of going through friendship, which is unreliable. And our friends want to talk about their shit, but I want to talk about my shit. Or I'm tired of hearing about your shit, right? Or I don't know how to talk about my shit.

And so it becomes a mess. And human relationships are unbelievably messy. And you know this from being married. What makes you better in marriage is that, you know, it's not the absence of conflict. You guys fight. You have conflict all the time, right? It's not the absence of conflict that makes great relationships. It's learning the skills to get through conflict peacefully and come out of the conflict better than you went into it.

And so what we're missing, what we're missing in AI friendship and AI product and AI tools is, yes, we get. the thing that we want and it's efficient and it's fast and it's pretty decent quality and we can feel a firm blah blah blah but we are not getting better or smarter or more creative. So do you think on that note over time is your prediction that we are going to get worse because we don't go through this process? Like in the example I think about is I saw this young girl that is a college graduate talking she's like I do not know how to spell because my spelling has always been done through an auto check.

So is that a benefit because she can still get the work done with those tools or is it not now actually making her worse. So the answer is it's a, it's a scale, right? Of course, right? Like back, I mean, now I'm dating myself. I used to have a mind like a steel trap for phone numbers. I knew every friend's phone number, every family's phone number. I knew every phone number that, like, I would remember phone numbers so easily.

By the way, I still know all the old phone numbers, but none of the new ones. Okay. I know one. Still. I know my old landline and I know my grandparents' phone number. And I know my sister. That's the only one, right? If you ask me to call my nephew right now,

I just type his name into my phone. I don't know. And my mind rebelled is like, fine. Now you will lose that ability. And you can tell me a phone number. I will forget it the minute you tell it to me, right? And I know that my mind has softened because of it. Now, is my survival better or worse because I can or can't remember phone numbers?

I don't think it's a big deal. Their technology, I'm happy to fill it. Remember, do you remember the Iliad that we had to read, I mean, or say that we read but didn't actually read? Homer. Homer. Those were oral traditions, right? The Iliad was handed down from generation to generation because people knew the story. This book is like this.

And somebody said, son, it's time I told you the Iliad, right? But then printing came along and our minds just stopped remembering. It's just kind of crazy, right? And so we have to ask ourselves, you're going to trade some sort of loss of something or other in order for technology to take over. Spelling being a great example. I'm a bad speller. You wouldn't know it because the computer fixes everything for me, right? Doesn't really matter.

Math? Like all of these things. So the question is, where is the line? And I think we could have a good debate about skills and memory and things like that. But when I think it comes to human relationships and the ability to be for someone, be there for someone, someone in a time of need, I would hate that somebody has completely outsourced their ability to be my friend to a computer. And I would feel embarrassed that I would not have any skills in a marriage, in a romantic relationship,

in a friendship, in a work relationship. I'm a leader. I'm a follower. I'm a member of a team that I literally have no skills, how to resolve conflict, how to express my feelings, how to ask for help. to admit I made a mistake. I'm going to give all of that up. No, thank you. Not for me. Have you seen friendships declining because of social media? And if so, is it because of that? Or is there other reasons? Deep meaningful friendships, of course. We know this. I mean, this is not news.

We know that there's a rise in depression, anxiety. We know there's a rise in inability to cope with stress. We know in the worst cases scenario there's a rise in suicide. Like we already know we already know this, right? Teenage girls are very susceptible. The delta, they're the single largest group. The rate of which they commit suicide is larger than everybody else. It's not the highest number of suicides. It's just the greatest increase. So we know all this. And if you think about what a friend does, right? If you have close friends, all of those things go away. The closer your friends, the better you can manage stress. The closer your friends,

the more courage you have to do difficult things. The better your friends, the more you feel like you can get through difficult times. Friendship is the ultimate biohack. In fact, I'd even go so far as the obsession that people have now with longevity. They all talk about blue zones and what they eat and what their diets are

and olive oil and Mediterranean diets and they go for walks. And yet very little is talked about the fact that they're having dinner with each other every single life. They're completely missing the social aspect. These days, people like options and option. which is why I'm so excited to talk about nowadays. People these days, like I said, are looking for alternatives to how they spend their time, how they enjoy their nights out, how they enjoy

social hours with their friends. Many people are looking for alcohol alternatives, which is where nowadays comes in. Founded in 2023, Nowadays was created to put a new spin on drinking. The brand was born from the desire to change the future of how we consume beverages, offering an easy entry point to cannabis that can be enjoyed just like alcohol. So as I was saying, nowadays is a cannabis-infused beverage brand designed to deliver a light, buzzy experience without the hangover. They come in bottles of three varieties, microdose, which is 2 milligrams,

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BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash skinny. That's BetterHelp H-E-L-P.com slash skinny. It's funny that you say this because we had this doctor on. Dr. Rangen. As a doctor, he started prescribing getting in community and getting around friends to his patients that came in with depression and anxiety. Yeah. And he said, don't change anything other than just getting together two times a week. Yeah, that makes, I love that he's doing that. And I would rather more doctors do that. And we treat symptoms often with medication, but the root cause is, I'm lonely. And you look at even coming back to work, right, especially people who started their first jobs during COVID during lockdown,

right? And they feel social anxiety when they come to work. They blame the coming to work. No, it's that you're suffering from the loneliness depression at home. This topic keeps coming up this week. I'm glad you're saying. No, no. And look, don't get me wrong. Like, I understand the benefits of working from home. And I'm not saying that it should go away.

But I'm saying that the wholesale rejection of wanting to come to work, for me, signal something, which is, I don't feel like I belong. The, this is a bigger, this is a much bigger topic, which is to go with the way capitalism changed over the past 30, 40 years. I don't know if you want to go down this rabbit hole. But it's a much bigger topic. This is a much bigger topic of which the rebellion to go back to work is symptomatic of something larger and not the generation itself. No, I think it's interesting to talk about because this company was started pre-COVID, everyone in five days a week together collaboratively. I don't think you can start a company. My personal opinion is I would never start a company remotely with a bunch of people. Now, people are going to disagree with me,

but as a founder and as an operator for years now, it's like it's really hard to develop that initial culture fragmented through a screen. It's why we refuse to do this show through a screen. But then it went obviously fully remote and now we have like a little bit of like a hybrid. And some tensions. Yeah, and there's some touch.

But my reasoning and this gets met with resistance for sure, because people feel like you're taking things away from them, is that over time, you are going to deal with different kind of stressors and different kind of issues and different kind of personnel problems by having that disconnect too consistently. 100%.

I have a virtual company. I had a virtual company since I started it many years before COVID. We made sure to build in human interaction. So we have the annual offsite where the whole team, and the first time we did the offsite, our young employees were like, nope, no, no, I don't want to travel, no,

and we were like, you kind of got to do it. And they loved it. When can we do the next one? Can we do it for longer? you know, because there's nothing better than laughing with someone or sitting with somebody quietly after dinner and having a drink next to the fireplace and just opening up. And this is what we forget, right? If you think about what happens in a company, which is Isaac Stern, the famous violinist, he said, music is what happens between the notes, right? And human beings, trust is what happens

between the meetings. Like, you don't build trust in a meeting. It just doesn't happen. But it's the conversation you have walking into the meeting. Like, hey, I heard your dad's sick. Yeah, thanks for asking. He's doing much better. It's the conversation you have when you walk out of the meeting where that's when all the decisions get made. It's the, hey, you want to grab a coffee? You want to go with me? I'm going to go down the street. Oh, I'd love a break. Yeah. And it's that just, even if you're not talking, it's being in communion. It's walking with someone. It's the feeling of safety when you're walking next to someone. All of those things over time, like a relationship. I can't tell you when. I can't tell you how long. But every time, you're like,

huh, really trust you. Right. And what we've done is we moved all of those spaces and online is just the meeting. How do you know when to bring a friend closer or when to cut a friend? So I think it's funny that when your marriage is struggling, you don't immediately say divorce. You say, I think we need to talk to somebody. And you do the hard work of seeing if you can rescue the friendship. Oh, that's a lot. A lot of work. I know it's a lot of work. Simon.

I know. And it's expensive. That's a lot of work. And you want me to carry the baby? Yeah, I know, I know. So you do the therapy. And I don't want you to complain. I want you to be quiet.

Now I feel I need to change. Is this going to become a couple's therapy? No, no, no. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I don't know. Tell me more about that. My intrusive thoughts, my intrusive thoughts won.

So, and you know both parties need to show up, right? one party is well-intentioned, the other party is disconnected, that relationship's going to fail, right? But you do the hard work, right? If you're having a problem at work, you know, with your boss or with a colleague or whatever it is, you tell somebody else, you have an effective confrontation because you've learned that human skill, good for you. Maybe you talk to HR, sometimes they help, sometimes they don't, but you at least try and like repair the relationship because passive aggressive at work is not going to work out, right? But for some reason, we have a lower standard with friendships. Like, you know, one friendship violates, one friend violates the trust,

and that's it. I can't be friends with you anymore, but you've been friends with them for 10 years. You keep saying they're your best friend. Yeah, I know, but what they did, I can't. Clearly, clearly I got it all wrong. And I think it's amazing how quickly we walk away from friendships. So I think, I think there needs to be friend friendship therapy. I think you need to go with a friend to people say, we had this horrible fight, and we think it's important that we try and resolve this. Can you help us because clearly we can't do it by ourselves? And what if it's not so cut, cut? Like, what if it's not like one thing? What if it's just like people growing apart? Yeah, that happens. I mean, there's nothing wrong. Look, I'm not so Pollyanna-ish to think that once you

meet somebody, they're your friend for life. I've outgrown friends. Friends have outgrown me. Yeah. Life changes, values changes. I've grown, you know, I had a friend who we were is inseparable. I became a better version of myself. He, year after year, was the exact same person. Yeah. And I got tired of having the same conversations about how he hated his boss. I'm like, so get a new fricking job. Like, I couldn't do it anymore, you know? And so we grew apart. Nothing personal, just nobody's angry at each other. It happens, you know? And that's totally fine. Yeah. And I think we have to, you have to remember that friends play different roles. Like, we have friends that we just enjoy their company. I'm not going to confide in you, right? But,

but I have fun with you, right? And there, I think, and I think people have a lot of superficial relationships or just fun relationships. I'm totally fine with that. I'm not talking about any of that stuff. I'm talking about the need for deep, meaningful relationships, whether you have one best friend or a small group of best friends or a nice network, but people, and this is going to be a funny one, people who you not only can call in times of need or desperation or fear or anxiety or confusion, and to call somebody to be like, I'm scared, I need to cry. Like, I have a rule with my friends, and all my friends know this, my close friends, which is no crying alone. That's my rule. If you, if something's happening in your life that is overwhelming you and you are by yourself and you do not know what to do,

you call one of, doesn't have to be me, but you call one somebody in the network and you say, I need to talk. And I've had friends call me and they just vented and cried. And I've done the same to friends. And those friends you need. And here's something which I find really funny that I stumbled upon in learning about friendship. We all have a small group of friends that we would call that we can be that vulnerable with, right? Where we can say, I'm struggling, I'm not doing well, my marriage is falling apart, you know, my job's falling apart, I'm falling apart, whatever it is. We have that, I hope, I hope.

What I find amazing is it's an even smaller group of friends that you can call and brag. I'm a freaking boss. I've nailed this. I am a freaking hero. Can I just call you and tell you this amazing thing I did? this amazing success I must be your friend that you brag to. Right? But what I find amazing is that group of people is even smaller than the group of people you can call and say, I have a problem.

Because it is so vulnerable if you think about it. It is so vulnerable to make yourself the center of attention. It is so vulnerable to be like to want to just celebrate me and the person on the other side sitting next to you on the other side of the phone has no jealousy, no envy. And all they want to do is be like, amazing, you're amazing. I love you. I'm so proud to be your friends. So is that, one, the vulnerability, but two, is it rare to have that good of friends that actually want that for you?

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

It's fine. Rant away. Rent it. Okay. Aside. And then I will come back. Rent. I was at this meeting and there's a bunch of different people sitting around the table.

And the person sitting next to me apparently was a famous yoga instructor. And like her whole time in the meeting, she was on her phone under the table. And I can see what she was doing. I'm sitting right next to her. It's not like there was a family member in the hospital and she's getting updates or something, right? She's on social media, I can see, right? And at some point, the conversation turned to being present.

And her head popped up. And she goes, that's why I love yoga, because it helps me be present. And I'm like, you're an idiot. What was her name? Yeah. So, and then I started to think about it, right? Then I started to think about it.

We've made all of these Eastern things deeply, deeply selfish, because that's what we do in America. We make it about us, right? So you think about meditation, right? And there's a big push for meditation right now. And meditation has an amazing number of benefits for the self, which is one of the reasons being promoted, right? First of all, this idea of being present.

That's why I like being present, right? I think you don't get to say when you're present until somebody else says you are, right? I think there's two kinds of presents. It's like, sure, you can be present by yourself. Feels amazing, great. Okay? but you don't know if you're present with somebody else until they say you're present, right?

So think about meditation. Think about meditation. Here's what we do when you learn to meditate. Number one, you learn to focus on one thing. There's no such thing as clearing your mind. That doesn't exist, right? You can think about nothing, right? And so you can focus on your mantra or your breath

or a dot on the wall or a sound or whatever it is. But the whole point is you focus on one thing. You learn concentration to concentrate on one thing. And if you have a thought, we've all learned what to do. You say you label that a thought. and put it aside and say, I'll deal with that later, right? And then you find this incredible calm, this incredible presence. And yes, it has all these medical benefits for you.

Okay, wonderful, present. Okay, now you're sitting with a friend. They're telling you something good, something bad, who knows what? They're just telling you about their day. And you have learned to focus on them and what they're telling you and only what they're telling you. And you have a thought, but you label it a thought and you say, and it's not about me right now, and I'll deal with that later. And there's a conversation going on over here that you can't even hear because you're so focused on your friend.

and you are now present for your friends. So you have been practicing meditation, not just for yourself. You've been practicing meditation so that you have the skill set to be a better friend. At the end of that conversation, your friend will say,

thank you for listening. Wow, thank you so much. Or, oh my God, thank you for being so present for me. Congratulations, you win a meditation award because you've learned a skill set and you now have applied it in a pro-social way.

So, yes, it has a selfish benefit, but it also has a selfless benefit. And we only talk about the selfish benefits. We don't apply this. So somebody could be some master meditator and the world's worst listener. Well, you have the skills. Why aren't you using them for your friends, right? So rant over about meditation. No, no, no, but it makes a ton of sense. And I think most people approach meditation just for me. Just exactly. And by the way, great, right? But there are selfless benefit. This is the paradox of being human. And this is where Maslov, you know the Maslov hierarchy of

needs, right? This is where Maslov got it wrong, right? So Maslov says the most fundamental, the basic that the bottom of the pyramid of the hierarchy of needs is food and shelter, right? Seems to make sense. Level number three, human relationships. And the top of the pyramid, self-actualization. Okay. The mistake Maslov made is that he failed to consider the paradox of being human, that every moment of every day, we are both individuals, and members of groups. Every day. I am me, but I'm also a member of a team, a family, a church, whatever, a sports team.

And every day I'm confronted with both little and big options. Do I put myself first at the sacrifice of the team? Or do I put the team first, the group first at the sacrifice of me? And there's a whole school of thought that says you look after yourself first, otherwise you can't be there for the others. There's another school of thought that says, nope, you always take care of others so they can be there for you. You're both right and you're both wrong. It's a paradox.

Right? Now go back to Maslov's hierarchy of needs. He only thought about it as a thought about us as individuals. 100% as an individual, if I'm on a desert island, yep, survival number one, food and shelter. That is the first thing I care about. But if you think about us as members of groups, now the hierarchy changes. I've never heard of anybody dying by suicide because they didn't have food or shelter. I've heard of people dying by suicide because they were lonely.

Okay? Which means the hierarchy is different. And self-actualization sounds very self-actualization. Can you mean sitting at the top of the pyramid looking down at all the unactualized people? What about shared actualization? And this goes back to the AI friend. Sure, you're helping me actualize, but I never get the joy of helping you actualize. And the joy of friendship is not me or you.

It's that it's us. A community is a group of people that agree to grow together. A friend is a partnership, a pairing of two people who agree to grow together. I will support you and you will support me. It won't always be balanced. Sometimes it'll be lopsided. But over the course of time, everything will even out in the wash. When you talk about when to walk away from friends,

is sometimes it becomes so lopsided, and you've tried to address it. Right? Because remember, friendship is about trust, not about actions, right? So nobody walks around with a notebook in their back pocket and keeps track of all the things I've done for you and all the things you've done for me. And nobody has an accounting at the end of the month going,

this month, I did 12 things for you that you asked me to do, and you did none. I asked you to do four and you did one. There's something wrong with us. We don't do that. You could do a hundred things for someone and they will do nothing for you. But you walk around with the absolute deep-seated confidence that the one day you need them, you know without a doubt they'll be there for you.

And that's why we call them friend, right? And if you think about it from like, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, I think about it from a business structure. A company is a group of people working collaboratively together on a single. When it's functional, yes. When it's functional, when it's dysfunctional, there is a lot of individuals where individual needs and interests, and that's why these things fall apart. That's why we talk here in this company, I said, listen, like above all else, above performance, above sales, above it. Culture comes first. If you are not good for the culture, if you're not working collaborative, if you're not getting along, if you're not, it's going to fall off with.

People got to go. You just helped actually me, you actually gave me, yes. But he gave you an idea. He gave an idea. But as you think, but it's really like. You got to share the idea. So what I've discovered here running this business is I have to. to do very little motivation or correcting or incentivizing through, you know, the typical

incentive. It's, all I have to do is reinforce the court, reinforce the culture and make sure people are working in a great environment with people that they respect and like and enjoy. And honestly, the rest of the stuff kind of takes care of itself. I know. It's, and it's, and the, and the problem is, is, is, is you know this because you've done it. Every other successful entrepreneur who's built any kind of culture worth writing about or talking about, will tell us the same thing, right? To the point where we all know the, you know, if you just take care of the people,

the people take care of the business, like we've all heard it a thousand times. And why do more people do it? And it's because it's mushy and it's fuzzy and it's hard to measure in discrete packets. And it's hard to measure, it's hard to put a dollar on it. Now, we know that those companies will outperform. We know those companies will be more efficient.

We know those companies, the machines won't break as often because people care about keeping the machine and working. We're like, we know all this. but the data only plays out over the course of time. It's also self, listen to if I've ever said this, as an employer selfishly, it's why I'm not afraid to lose people, people in the room like what? Because when the culture exists and it's great and there's a mission,

a lot of people want to come into that culture. Yeah. Where like if you have a bad organization with a bad culture, a lot of people are waiting to escape to find the next thing so that they can get out of it. You know what I mean? So for me, my thing is like grow, grow, grow, be happy. Like if you want to go on and the next thing, let me help you get there. But I'm never worried about people joining that want to be part of it.

because I know it's special. People have to graduate from jobs sometimes, which is, you know, I don't want to be in this one job forever. It doesn't mean I'm quitting. It doesn't mean I failed. It just means I'd like to graduate. And so we can celebrate their graduation and help them land the next thing, right? I just believe that the respect and dignity should be both ways, you know,

especially company to employ, you know, you hope employee to company, right? Yeah, 100% right. But this is the reason why most people, most companies don't use my work. I've written about start with why. I've written about, you know, leaders eat last. I've written about the infinite game. And most people won't use my work. Why?

Because my work is like exercise, right? Which is if you come to me and say, Simon, I want to get into shape. How do I do it? I'd be like super easy. All you need to do is work out every single day for 20 minutes. And I guarantee it, I guarantee 100% success rate, you will get into shape. When you ask me, I don't know. I know 100% it's going to work.

But I don't know and neither does any doctor. And that's what my work is. my work is a discipline, right? Starting with Y as a discipline. Maintaining an infinite mindset is a discipline. And 100% of the time it works. I know it does. The problem is it may not meet your quarter.

It may not meet your year. It may not give you the result that you want in the time frame that you want it. And most companies are so driven by arbitrary numbers and arbitrary timeframes that they're not going to ever invest in something that they cannot safely predict exactly when it's going to happen. So they just don't. That's a bummer. Sometimes it's quick and sometimes it's slow. but 100% of the times it works.

On the start with Y Lane, if you are not just an inspiring entrepreneur, but aspiring anything, you want to create something. You want to create a podcast. An aspiring creator. Creator of anything, but is it anything. And you were starting from scratch.

Yeah. How would you coach people to approach? My biggest difficulty for the longest time is people would always come to me with this. What's your passion? What's your passion? And it fully screwed me up until I figured out the reason to do things.

Yeah. But if someone comes, to Simon, I have X idea. What do you think? Like, what are the first pieces of advice you're giving them in terms of how to start? Yeah. So, so the funny thing is, and you and I were talking about this offline before we started, which is the best companies, the best ideas are when somebody found a solution to solve their problem or somebody they care about's problem or to, in some way, shape, or form genuinely alleviate some sort of pressure in their lives. And that solution became the business, you know, and people who just say, I want to be an entrepreneur, I'm looking for a business

to start. Those aren't great businesses because you're driven by the wrong thing. There's no passion for that. It's like people who come up to me and say, Simon, I want to be a public speaker. I'm like, great, what do you want to speak about? Well, I don't know yet. I'm like, no, no, no. I never wanted to be a public speaker. Like, it wasn't even on the list, right? I found something that I desperately cared about, and all I wanted to do was talk about it. So I fell in love with something first. And so I, I, and even when I was, you, you know, you know, you. And even when I was, you, when I had a corporate job when I was a young, when I was a young kid, you know, they would, HR would say to me, what's your, what's your vision for yourself?

And I'd be like, oh, I'd like to start a business one day. Like, I knew I had it in me, right? I literally was telling them I'm going to quit. It's amazing that anybody gave me a job. But the question was, I didn't, when the opportunity showed up, like when I knew what and when I knew when. And so I had a job for a while. And, you know, I think that, and you and I were talking about this as well, which is the statistic for somebody who starts a new business, The odds of failure are absolutely overwhelming.

You know, over 90% of new businesses will fail in the first three years. I mean, it is an astonishing, astonishing number. Why? I mean, there's many, many reasons. One, they shouldn't be businesses in the first place, two, the person who... There's no why. There's no why. The person doesn't know, I mean, in my case...

The leader's eating first. In the leader is eating first. In my case, in my case, I nearly went out of business because I was running on force of personality and what nearly put me out of business was actually some success because I was doing okay but I had to be in every meeting make every decision

and so that's not scalable and so when I actually had to build structure and I think that happens to a lot because it happens at about two or three years when you start finding your footing and you're like okay I got a good value proposition I got a good product but the problem is you have no clue

how to build a structure and that's all the company is it's a structure and if you don't have structural abilities or know how to hire or partner with somebody who does have structural abilities a good operator it's going to collapse or you're just going to have a lifestyle business. You're just going to, you just have the brand bigger than yourself.

And have the ability to scale it beyond the personality. It's a structural thing, though. You're right. It's a structural thing. I look at it as almost like an erector set as you're building a, you know, when you're a kid, you'd build the things and it can only stand up so tall unless you like get a... You put buttresses on you. And look, you can run on force of personality. You just can't scale a force of personality.

I think you have to, it's kind of like looking, I think starting a good business is kind of like looking for love. Like, you can look for love, but you're not going to be. kind of marry the first pretty person you meet. You know, you kind of like, you just, you got because passion, passion is an output, not an input. People think, you know, do something you're passionate for. Like, well, everybody has passion. We should have passion for the same. Like, I love when companies, I only hire passionate people. What is that even, I don't even how you, I don't even how you interview for that. They'll tell you about how they love doing Lego. It doesn't mean they're going to be a great employee, right? Like, we all have passions, but I think when

you find something you believe in, then the output you get. is passion. You get is love. Like, I like you. I don't love you. Right. So I think that if somebody has entrepreneurial ambitions, they should find someone they believe in that they want to follow, because it doesn't have to be your idea. You can join a small business and be like, I love this person, I love their idea, I love what they're trying to do in the world. I want to take the huge overwhelming risk to be a part of that, recognizing that my job is going to be 10 things more than I thought it was going to be, right? Like, not even being the entrepreneur, but joining an entrepreneurial venture, I think is the same mentality.

You're nuts unless you kind of like the fun of it, you know. But you have to fall in love with something or someone there, you know? And yeah, I can feel it. What? But also, I was going to say this when you were talking about friendship. Taylor and Michael and I have been friends since we were 12. But that makes sense to me. Yeah.

Because when you first start a business, right? You don't have a why. You're not going through a Y discovery process. All the stuff that I talk about, when you're at ground zero and you're starting, is all irrelevant. But it actually doesn't matter because the first people you hire are your friends. Why do you hire your friends? Because they love you and you love them. Why do you bring them on?

Because they trust you and you trust them. They may or may not have the right skills, but it's good enough for now. And so you can bumble and fumble it at the early stages of a company and all of the things that I talk about, the why and the hows and the values. It's all built in. The wine and the house become more important as you start to have some success. And now you're forced to hire people who aren't your friends. Right. We all hired our friends out of the gate.

Of course we did because it's baked in. The love, the trust, the passion, the community. It's all baked in. Not scalable. Wonderful. Fun. And if you want to just stop there and make a lifestyle business, do that. Do that.

It's great. You know, you can make a good living. What's the difference between leaders who eat first and leaders who eat last? I mean, it sounds simple, but just explain it from your perspective. Sure. So that title, the book Leaders Eat Last, came from a conversation I had with a Marine, a U.S. Marine, right? I asked him a simple question. Why are Marines so good at what they do?

And he looked at me and said, officers eat last. Right? Now, if you visit any Marine base anywhere in the world, and it's Chow time, you will see Marines line up in rank order. The most junior Marine eats first, the most senior Marine eats last. I didn't know that. And if they are the same rank, they will literally fight about, well, you've been in here for 20 years. I've been here for 25 years. You eat before me.

There was no order given. It's not in any rulebook. It is a deeply seated cultural thing that somebody with seniority looks after the person who has less seniority. And what that does is it produces a culture of camaraderie and esprit of corps that is hard to match. So if you go into an austere condition where food is much more scarce and we're eating MREs and, you know, the bagged food that, you know, the Marines will eat in combat, right? The officer will make sure literally that their Marines will eat before them. And I know many stories where the officer gives up their food so that their Marines can eat. And what the Marines will do is all give up a little bit of their food to ensure that their officer eats as well.

And so what you get is reciprocity. And it's just like kids, right? You have, there's no parent who eats and then feeds their child. I don't know. Lauren's been pregnant from her. Have you met me? I'm so I'd eat before my kids right now. We ordered the kids me the other day.

I'm like, you just ate all the kids' food. It's gone. They're starving. But because she's protecting the baby inside of her. Whatever you want to think so. She's feeding the baby inside of her. I'll work with you. That's what I've been telling myself.

But like think about it. Like the amount of times when you have young kids, you're eating macaroni and cheese over the sink. And you would never put the kid in the chair and be like, let's have dinner. And when we're done with dinner, we'll pee that. You always feed the kids first. That's true. Right. Why?

Because that's your job. Right. That is the job of a parent to take off, to look after those who, by the way, they're old enough to go to the fridge and make themselves dinner right now. But you don't. You make sure they eat first and later they eat with the family, right? And what you get is love back. What you get is mom, dad, can you help me with my math problem? It's like what you get is trust and reliance back because you have taken care of them. It's the exact same thing on a team. It's a human relationship. So when a leader eats last, when a proverbia, proverb can I get it out. When the leader eats last, they'll just leave it out altogether,

both sometimes literally, but philosophically, what you get, is gratitude, what you get is loyalty, what you get is the willingness to say, I need your help because that's the relationship you've built. And that's exactly what the best leaders in the military have done. I find in a different correlation, if you're leading anything, and I try to reinforce this, not always perfect, but try to, is that if a mistake happens in the business and you're the first person to say, I screwed up. I screwed up. My bad, didn't communicate it properly, didn't set up the right system, didn't set up the right structure. It creates what you're talking about here, which is people then say, well, let's all say.

solve it together where if you push the blame down, down, down, then that just keeps getting pushed down and nobody wants to work to solve it together. It's like it's this really like, it's this accountability that exists where you have one situation where everyone's just blaming everyone else and nobody's fixing it, or you have another situation where everyone's like, hey, there's a mistake, let's all fix it together. Yep. I mean, this is exactly what leaders eat last is when it's not related to food. My grandma used to always tell me. I'd be like, what is love and what is friendship? and she says that there's a piece of the most delicious chocolate cake on the table, and you want the person before you to have the last bite.

Would you not love me then? I know. Sometimes I don't do that. Unless you're Dutch. Why? Oh, is that bad luck? So, no. You must be Dutch.

I must be Dutch. The Dutch are different to us, right? So I learned this. I'm in Amsterdam. How did they say it? Amsterdam. I'm in Amsterdam. And I have a Dutch friend, so we went out, and she brought a friend of her.

I'm out with a bunch of Dutch people, right? And we were having something, we were sharing a plate, and I don't remember what it was, and there was one left. Now, I always learned, we learned, like, we go, you have the last one. No, you have the last one. No, you have the last one. Eventually somebody gives in, right? When there's one left.

This guy just leans over and just eats it. And I was like, what the hell? Like, you rude bastard, right? And then another plate we're all sharing last one, and he just leans over and eats it. I couldn't help myself. I'd be like, I have to ask. Like, I wanted that. I would have given it to you, but you should have at least offered it to me, right?

And he goes, oh, no, that's not how we do it in Holland. And she looks at me and goes, yeah, we don't do that in Holland, right? Because in Holland, the awkwardness and the discomfort of no you, no you, no you, it's actually considered more polite to just be the one who just takes it and then there's no argument. I should move on down to Holland. Here's a hack, a health hack, Fay Nutrition. Faye connects you directly with registered dietitians, the real food and nutrition. experts. So what you get here is a personalized nutrition counseling tailored specifically to you.

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Everything is built on trust and transparency. So what I do with Momentus's creatine is I will do amino acids in my ice water. I do like a mango amino acid. And then I will have it, stack it with a scoop of creatine. I do this every single time I work out. And I froth it up, and I take it to the gym and I drink it on the go. And it was really cool when we interviewed Ivanka Trump because she also raved about creatine. I think creatine's really having a moment with women. I think women are seeing how amazing it is. What I've noticed with creatine for me is it like tightens my skin around the muscle. So you got to try it. Their creatine is the purest form available. It's for men and women. Michael takes it too. So if you're ready to switch it up to a company who is doing it

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non-toxic. It comes in a beautiful pink tube and it has a unique custom wand where you can apply it on your brows or your lashes. You're going to be obsessed with this one. It's kind of like my baby. I'm very excited for it. You can go to shop, skinny confidential.com.com. I would get on subscription because we're probably going to sell out. We do sell out a lot. Go shop our brow peptide at chopp skinny confidential.com. Your video on millennials in the workplace. Yeah.

It went viral, crazy. Yeah. Why? What's your view? So it came at a time when the most common question I got asked, like every talk I gave, every meeting, literally 100%. The first one or two questions I got asked is millennial. in the workplace. Like, apparently they're unleadable. Like, what the hell am I doing? Right? And so I had to

fashion an answer. And so instead of saying, well, here's the problem with millennials, you know, I said, well, let's look at this empathetically. Let's let's take a look at the environment in which they've grown up. Because we're all products of our environment. You know, it's like if you, if your grandparents grew up during the Second World War or the Depression, they're super miserly. Like they reuse all the jam jars and save all the unused aluminum foil, right? Well, there's nothing wrong with them. They're not, there's no personality defect. It's because they grew up in the depression, right? Like, it affects their, the way they live their lives, right? Like, somebody who grows up poorer, like treats food very differently than somebody who grows up rich,

right? Like, we are, we are products of our environment. So instead of just whining, complaining about millennials, let's like take a look at how they grew up. Let's look at the, the rise of technology in their lives. And let's look at how parenting styles changed, that they were subjected to pretty shitty parenting. Because their parents were swooped in and fixed everything. Right? So there's like an entitlement issue.

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

I think I'm going to do a medium. Like, I'm going to go medium. I think I'm going to say figure it out. Medium is better. Yeah. Medium is better. I think you're going to have to go figure it out. I mean, it's not, but, but they, but so, and by the way,

this data about the parenting doesn't come from, it comes from the parents of themselves. Got it. The parents of millennials, like look at their kids and be like, ah, it's my fault. Sorry. You know? Like, a lot of the data comes from the parents and themselves. is really funny. But the overprotection has implications. And if you just look at the way, even, and we talked about how capitalism changed, you know, they grew up, they grew up in a time

where layoffs became normalized. The concept of a mass layoff in the United States didn't exist prior to the 1980s. Didn't exist. I did not know that. That's interesting. Did not exist, right? You only laid people off if the company was like, like, we're in serious decline and like, we got to do something drastic to save the business. But the idea is like we missed our numbers. We're profitable, just not as profitable as we want it to be. You lose your job, which is kind of how we do things now. Literally didn't exist. It was popularized in the 80s and 90s by leaders like Jack Welch, the CEO of GE, and others like him.

And now it's normal, right? So think about it. This generation grew up watching their parents or their friends' parents lose their jobs through no fault of their own. It's not a meritocracy, not a meritocracy, right? And so these people work hard, they do good work, but then they come to work one day. I'm like, yeah, I'm sorry, you're getting laid off because we missed our own. numbers. That's how they grew up. And so flash forward when they enter the workforce, and now companies are like, you give us your loyalty. And they're like, no. Let's go with no.

Because I know you give me nothing. And like one of the big complaints about young people today and this what appears like entitlement, like when you and I were starting our careers, we would work really hard. We would excel at something. And then we would go to our boss and say, look at how much extra I've done. I'd like a raise or a promotion. Okay. Now you don't get that. Now you're like, I'd like a raise or promotion now, and then you're going to see what I'm going to do. And they're not wrong if you consider how they grew up, because they grew up in a world where giving extra, you could just lose your job tomorrow because we missed our arbitrary projections.

So they're like, you know what, cash in now because no guarantees later. And so they're playing by the rules the company set. So you have to build a company that operates differently if you want the behaviors to be different. But at a corporate level, at a sort of a mass market sort of generic level, the rules have shifted and the irony is companies are complaining but they're the ones

that set the rules and the young employers are simply playing by the rules the company said. What's scary though and worth mentioning is some of that thought process can work when there's a ton

of job availability but when things get really competitive going back to competitive what I always tell people when I think about for my kids is you can be you can coddle people as much as you want

you can be as soft you can create participation trophies but if you get into the real world where competition starts to get tight again and you're used to that, you're at a real disadvantage. I went on a podcast and I made this statement that got a lot of shit. Like I got a lot of criticism for this, what I'm about to say. And I was surprised by it because it wasn't my opinion. It was just sort of this warning, right?

Which is the younger generation today is very comfortable with quitting. You know? And they don't necessarily even have to have a job lined up. They're like, nope, this is not for me, right? And again, you know, the weaker loyalty, so it makes it even easier, but they're very comfortable quitting. And you see them going through their jobs. Like, I would never have quit a job in less than a year for fear of ruining my resume. Like you just... I won't hire people that I see that do that. I don't... So you're making my point, which is, which is if somebody's going to have, you know, six jobs or seven jobs in five years, there's two things I know, right?

A, they haven't had, they haven't gone through hell. They haven't gone through stress, which means they might, might be have been in the workforce for five years, but they don't have the seniority of somebody who's been in the workforce for five years because they haven't they haven't been tested. They keep leaving, right? When the going gets tough, right? They keep leaving.

Now, I'm not, and not every job was toxic. Like the statistics couldn't bear that out, right? That's impossible, right? If every job is toxic, then at some point you got to do some soul search. Right, like it's like the only common factor in all my failed relationships. Yeah.

Because they were all crazy. No, it was me. Damn it. Yeah. So there's that. And then you just said it, which is you're going to get to the point in your career where any leader worth their salt is just not going to offer you a job because the expectation is you're just going to leave here in five or six months because either something better comes along or something upset you. And to be clear, I'm not looking for blind loyalty on day one or enthusiasm, but I'm also not looking to be a stopping off point so that you can leverage me to me to graduate and go on to better things. I love the entrepreneurial ventures.

I've had people quit to go start their own business design and I cheer them on. I thought people work with me quit and be supportive of going and doing their own thing. But the point is all I issued was a warning, which is if you quit that many jobs, right, you're not going to get the experience to operate at a senior level. So you might get the position and you're going to flail. So now you're going to have self-confidence issues because you just haven't learned the skills of quote-unquote difficult. Or you would just struggle to find a job. You'll just struggle to find a job with a good company because a good leader is just not going to take a risk on that kind of resume.

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

there's Lauren and I will sometimes go speak at schools now many of these schools would have thrown my application in the trash on first glance ironic isn't it

I taught at Columbia and at a graduate level and my grades weren't good enough to get into my own program but what I tell people I try to point out some of these things we're discussing

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

And I'm like, yes, it will work for a short period of time. It'll last, it'll, it'll, it's, you're treating a career. transactionally. A hundred percent it works in the short period. 100 percent. But if you're going to have a career for 40 or 50 years, you are front-loading, and by the way, when you're starting, you're getting the least amount of pay. As you get later into your career, hopefully you get the most amount of pay. So you're trading short periods of pay at the least amounts at the long-term expense of not being able to get the things that will pay greater amounts for longer periods. The advice I've always given to young people is treat an entry-level job

or an early level job like it's just graduate school. Like it's the next part of your education, right? You're going to school. Like, you're not going to get rich, but you're going to get the best education of your life, right? And treat it like, come today. And by the way, there's nothing you can do that's going to break the company because you're two junior anyway. Right. So learn how to say, I made a mistake.

Learn how to ask for help. Learn new skills. Learn how to create teams. Learn how to be a leader. Learn how to look after your colleague to the left and colleague to the right. Learn how to help other people around. around you do even better than they thought they could because you're on their team. Like, really learn.

And to your point, you know, one of the shitty things about being juniors, you have to be good at everything, right? And then what ends up happening over time is you start to find out where your skills are. And then as you get senior, you only have to be good at like two or three things. Become a specialist. You become a specialist. And that's the advantage you get of being senior, which is we hire you to be good at this one thing.

But when you're junior, with some exceptions, obviously, but for the most part, you unfortunately have to be good at everything. Yeah, I like that you're saying this because... And that's school. School is like high school, I had to take every subject. Right. College, I got to refine it a little bit, but they still made me take requirements for my major.

By the time you get to the outside world, it's kind of like starting in high school over again. Yeah. In the lane of like, so I know I'm going to get pushed back because I'm quote unquote an employer, but in the lane, like, if I was coaching one of my siblings or my child, I have been met at times. And again, like, I understand the loyalty part of this,

and understand everything you articulated and why people are hesitant to give more to companies. But selfishly, if I was an individual, I was talking to my son, I would say, you are going to start in these junior roles and they are going to ask you to do things that are not, quote, unquote, your job. You never heard that when people say, hey, that's not what I was hired for. Not my job.

I'm like, yes, but the point is, is you are developing this broad skill base so that eventually you will transfer that skill to a specialist position. And that's why someone will pay you the big bucks. If you start from the perspective of, I only do these very special. specific things, you are limiting your own self-growth. May I?

You may. And. And. We are talking about it from perspective of an employer. So now let's talk about it as a perspective of an employee, right? We are not, I am not advocating that you follow our advice blindly. Of course not. Right?

What I am advocating is like, like, one of my favorite things, when I was, when I was entry level, the HR interviewer would always say to me, what are you looking for? It's like such a standard HR question. What are you looking for? And my answer was always the same. I said, what I'm looking for is probably akin to looking for love, but I'm looking for a mentor.

Right? And when you take an entry-level job, don't worry about the pay. Don't worry about how glamorous the brand is. Worry about who you're going to be working for. Worry about the company. worry about their culture. And when you go through the interview process,

the person who you're going to be directly reporting to, evaluate them harshly if they're the kind of person that you want to lead you. And it's the other thing that I love about the Marine Corps. Only the Marine Corps does this. The Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Space Force, do not do this.

Space Force. And when we have it. And they're good. They're great. The guardians. The other forces do not do this. When you go to become an officer in any of those other forces,

you get trained by officers. When you go to officer candidate school for the Marine Corps, you get trained by the enlisted. And I've seen it happen. It's amazing. These young officers, potential officers, are being yelled out by these enlisted, which is once they commission,

those enlisted work for them. Like the hierarchy switches immediately. That drill instructor is now more junior to the most junior officer, right? So, and they yell at them, you want me to follow you? You want me to follow you? You need to pick up your stuff and get this right if you want me to follow you.

And I love that construction, whether people doing the following or evaluating the leaders, right? They're training the leaders. And so it's the same, which is when you're interviewing, yes, you might make a little less money at this company.

I hear you, I hear you. And the brand, it's not a famous brand. I got it, I got it. But work for the person, because you don't work for the brand and you don't work for the money. You work for a person. And if you can choose your first two, three, four jobs,

especially the first two or three, right? If you choose the person to work for, it'll set you up for the rest of your career. So I'm not saying just get any job and do what we're saying and go through shit and don't quit. No, no, no, no. You can follow all of those things if you picked the wrong person, if you made a mistake. Yeah. I think what I'm trying to do and you've just done it better is point out the blind spots of some of that process, the thought process. Yeah. Right? Where it's like, yes, but and and just think about the repercussions as you're building a career. And more importantly, a reputation. Has anyone ever told you that you look like John Hamm?

No, but thank you. Yeah, you do look like... I've had Robin Williams, which I'm not sure that made me feel it. John Hamm's better. Yeah, I'm way better. From a, from a aesthetic perspective. Yeah, I've got to be careful. Not a talent perspective. Yeah. Talent perspective, I think Robin has him.

Maybe not. Well, it's a different kind of talent, right? It's an improv talent. You do. You look like John Hamm when I'm talking about. Well, that's very, very kind. Not that John Ham's not talented, but Rob Williams was... John Ham's known in the industry to be packing a punch down there. So that's a great compliment.

I will not comment on that. Okay. Well, I've heard many things about John Hamm. John Hamm has a ham. By the way, I know people who know. I don't know firsthand. I don't know John Hamm. Okay.

And I definitely don't know him in that way. I know people who do know, and it is true. You know what? I do. I have this talent that I can spot stuff like that. Is that a talent or just eyes up here, eyes up here? No, it's not, I just can feel the energy of the guy. And what does it feel like?

John Ham. It's one of the six things like if John Ham turns. Go watch John Ham on Madman, that's what it feels like. If John Ham turns around too fast, you could take someone out, you know? Did you see, what the hell was it? Fargo with John Ham. So good. Oh, I haven't seen it. He is. He's really great.

He is astonishingly good. See, you guys have a hard on for John Ham. You know what? Because no, you know what I'm trying. If John Ham ever hears this and listen to us, I really hope not because of what you've been going off on. But Robin Williams, obviously incredible. John Hamm, incredible. Different talents.

I just don't think I look like Robin Williams. No. It's not, it's not. I didn't need to go down the Robin home, John Hamm, Robin Williams. You look like John Hamm. Now you have to unfuck it. Now I feel like every kind of thing. My life is, my life is swear.

You're a lot of swear. Every kind of thing I've said on this show. The thing I'm most worried about is that Robin Williams will be disrespected. John Ham will be disrespectful. Both of them, phenomenal talent. We got it. Okay. Before you go, you have to tell us about quiet quitting, the epidemic of quiet quitting.

Okay. Please let's end on that because I think that's an important topic to discuss. Okay. I think it's funny. Not that it doesn't exist. I think it's quiet quitting is a term that senior people came up with. So it's like a brand of something. So here's what it is, right?

So when somebody disengages at work, senior people go, They're quiet quitting. They're quiet quitting. I want them out of this company. I can't, all this quiet quitting, we have a quiet quitting epidemic, right? But when senior people disengage, other senior people go to them and be like, you're going through something? Why don't you take some time off?

I think you're maybe burnt out. You know, maybe you're burnt out. Why don't you take a little time? So there's the same behavior happening at the senior levels. We just call it burnout. But at the junior levels, we call it quiet quitting, you know? And of course, there are always people who are like, I'm going to quiet quit. Wait, I thought quiet quitting was you just leave.

and don't tell anyone to never show up. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, quiet quitting is... This whole time, that's what I thought. No, no, no, quiet quitting is disengaging to the point where you're doing the absolute minimum. You're completely disengaged at work, and you, you've basically quit, you've abdicated responsibility, and you, like I said, you kind of phone it in. I literally, this whole time thought it was like somebody just doesn't show up and you think they're on vacation. Well, you weren't present in the conversation when I was telling you about it.

No, but I heard it's like... I was telling Michael about quiet quitting, and he wasn't being. present so he needs to meditate. He needs to know more meditation. But what is it when someone like goes on vacation and just never comes back but doesn't tell anyone they're never coming back? I think that's just called a virtual company. Yeah.

That's true. That's what I have. Okay. So quiet quitting is like a fake brand. I think it's an unfair brand. There are absolutely young people who say I'm quiet quitting. I think that's the minority. I think those people, you know, of course it's happening.

But when we, when senior people accuse young people of quiet quitting, perhaps they're just burnt out. Perhaps they're in the wrong job. Because nobody ever says somebody's seniors quite quitting. Okay. Doesn't exist. Okay. I think it's a mislabeled thing that we need to have a little more. If somebody's disengaged, that means we should probably be a little more empathetic and find out what's going

wrong because either they're going through something or we have a culture that that is not making somebody feel included. Let's do some of the rapid fires because I think it'd be rapid fire. Okay. Let's go. Rapid fire. Ready? You didn't wear a leather shirt jacket. I know. You guys are like twins over here. I got the memo that I had to wear a blue shirt with a brown shirt shirt. A suede over shirt. Is that what that's rolling over?

You should have taken yours off to have a little dimension. I know, but then I was like. But we look like we're in a team. Oh my gosh. And I kind of like, I kind of like, I'm comfortable. The outfit, we have to talk about the outfit every morning. He's worse than I am. Okay.

Did you laid out the night before on the bird? Oh, my. Lay it out. Tell the truth. Tell the real truth. Do you try on different outfits the night before? Oh, my God. I don't try them on.

I do. I am traveling and living out of a hotel right now. so I did have it all laid in a hangar. I'm not going to lie. I put it together. I would just pop up and throwing together. I just, I don't talk to you about that. No, this is what he does.

He gets dressed slow so I can see each iteration of it. So first he comes out. Why are you wearing that? It's like the pants without the shirt and his hair's done and he wants a compliment on the hair. Then he comes out with the shirt. This is 100% sure. Do you have photographs of outfits in the closet? Look at him this morning.

I'm going to show you. picture of him this morning showing you were showing me how it looks without the thing on no but i'm not sitting in my house having breakfast no but he's showing me how it looks without this on you look very um wall street in that picture yeah he thinks so too that's a rare shot too i was like that's i'm not really good finale is the this with the briefcase he does it every day briefcase oh it's not a briefcase very retro it's a satchel it's a big it's a big duffel it's a big duffel it's like the hard a satchel satchel is a soft briefcase careful you don't want to be Quit this relationship.

It looks like a briefcase has rigidity to it and a satchel has less rigidity to it, but they're the same thing. It's a shoulder strap. Not necessarily. So it's not a, it can't be a briefcase. It has a shoulder strap. Rapid fire questions. Favorite book you recommend, not your own. I don't read much.

That's so interesting. I know. I think that's interesting. I carried a lot of shame with it about it for a lot of years and I lied about it for a lot of years. I have pretty bad ADHD and so reading a book is very, I've started a lot of books. I've finished very few. But I also think you only have so much capacity. towards books. Like you're writing all the time and maybe that's your form of like learning.

I'm not writing all the time. You are? I would have written more books if I've been writing all the time. Okay. I like the honesty. I've written three books in 15 years. There's nothing worse when someone comes on the podcast and recommends a book that they've never read. I mean, I've only read one, other than my own, I've only read one book cover to cover. What's that? The Da Vinci Code. Is it good? It's good. Wait, do I need to read that? I'll tell you why it's good. It's written for people like me, which is it's very short sections. They're all really compelling that make you want to keep reading. It's the only book in my life. I was at a conference and I, like, every time they had a break, I went up to my hotel room and read. Like, I've never done that in my life. Okay, I've got to read it. So it's good. What, out of all your books, which one would you recommend the first?

Which one people start with? Yeah. I mean, start with why? Start with Y is a very good place. They're not, they are, they do build upon each other, but you can read them independently. They're not, it's not a serial. I mean, start with Y is a beautiful, elegant little idea. It's a great place to start.

But the Infinite Game is some of the best. best thinking I've ever done. Very, very proud of infinite game. I need to buy that one. And together is better. You can read on the toilet. It's very short. Read on the toilet. Like it's got one sentence per page. Okay. It's a great, together is better as the best one. Okay. Weirdest habit. I hate any kind of open cabinet. And so I open a cabinet, take something out, close it. Open it up. And like, if I go to other people's homes and their cabinets are open in their kitchen, would people just leave cabinets open, which should be a crime. Are you going to sit here straight face and say you hate that habit?

I don't like open cabinets. I go into other people's homes and close the cabinets because it just makes me uncomfortable. I agree. Yeah, so that's a strange habit. You're going to play this off as if you hate open cabinets? What do you mean? I don't like, I like everything organized. I don't, it's not an organized thing.

I think it's visual. You don't like having to use your wrist to close. I know there's open cabinets everywhere in your trip. Like, it's like a wake of open cabinets behind you. No, no, you're reading me wrong. I like to mess everything up to clean it up, and then I like the cabinets closed. But it stays open for how long many times? What's the longest amount of time you've left a cabinet open?

24 hours? A week. Yeah, actually hates it over the cameras. The most surprising. For me, it's minutes. Come over to my help. The most surprising thing about success. The most surprising thing about success.

Yes. Well, you know, I think most surprising thing about success. Yes. Such a good question. I'm trying to think of something I was surprised by. I think people think that as you gain success, you work less. I guess that depends on money. I guess some people could. But I find I found myself wanting to work more. Because maybe because you find more purpose as you go on in your work. I think focus and purpose definitely. And it's not because it's not because if I work harder, I'll get more. It wasn't like that. It was just like I found myself. having opportunity to do more things that interested me. I think that's a great answer. You're, I will say, interviewing a lot of people, you're very thoughtful on a mic.

You can tell you're thoughtful about what you say. It's very impressive. Thank you. Yeah. I like this interview a lot. Simon, where can everyone follow you and find you? All the usual places. Instagram.

The Instagram, the TikTok, the LinkedIn, the Facebook, the interwebs. Love it. And we're going to go record a TikTok right now. He's so excited. He can't wait. He's on the end of his seat. That's what he's waiting for. Let's go see if the cabinets are open.

Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. Simon, thank you for coming on. So much fun. Thank you.