The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 348: Simon Sinek - Why Consistency Beats Intensity (Playing The Infinite Game)

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com Episode #348: Simon Sinek - Why Consistency Beats Intensity (Playing The Infinite Game) Notes: Leaders who sustain excellence: Humility - They don't believe their own hype. Their power is accumulated through helping others. "I'm fully aware I'm the same idiot I was back then." "Vision is like an iceberg.  The great leaders can see what's beneath the surface." "I never look at what I've done, I look at what I can do." "I tend to be very future focused." "People called me the 'why' guy... For my tastes, it's about new ideas, building on ideas." "We all need to find a vision." People should practice telling stories about real people, learn how to use metaphors Simon described the difference between the messaging at Apple vs. Microsoft Microsoft (during the Steve Ballmer days) were focused on their competition Apple was focused on helping teachers and designing beautiful products Stop thinking of others as competitors... Instead find worthy rivals In the late 1970's Milton Friedman said business should maximize profits for shareholders.  For some reason, this idea was adopted and it became the norm.  it was embraced.  It's terrible.  Prior to this, the idea of mass layoffs didn't exist as an option for a business. "We all have to become the leader we want to become." "Leadership is not rank, it's seeing those around you rise." "Business is one of the most personal things in the world."  You should never said, "it's not personal, it's just business."  It's ALWAYS personal. Great leaders are the ones who think beyond short term vs long term. They are the ones who know it's not about the next quarter or the next election but about the next generation. The greatness of George Eastman - he was not just how great for Kodak,  but amazing for the game of business as a whole… He created a lot of employee incentives in 1912 that had not been happening up to that point. Stock options, sick days, college tuition reimbursement, etc. "Consistency becomes more important than intensity." "Where a finite-minded player makes products they think they can sell to people, the infinite-minded player makes products that people want to buy. The former is primarily focused on how the sale of those products benefits the company; the latter is primarily focused on how the products benefit those who buy them." "Being the best simply cannot be a Just Cause, because even if we are the best (based on the metrics and time frames of our own choosing), the position is only temporary. The game doesn't end once we get there; it keeps going. And because the game keeps going, we often find ourselves playing defense to maintain our cherished ranking. Though saying "we are the best" may be great fodder for a rah-rah speech to rally a team, it makes for a weak foundation upon which to build an entire company. Infinite-minded leaders understand that "best" is not a permanent state. Instead, they strive to be "better." "There is an entire section at the book store called "self-help," there should be a section called "help others." Why lead? --> "Because you want to see others grow. Your job may be 9 to 5, but leadership is 24-7." "If you like the idea of taking care of others, you may be suitable to lead."

And we have to stop thinking with the other players as competitors and start thinking to them as rivals. And some of those rivals are worthy of comparison. Worthy rivals are the other players in the game who are better at some things than you are. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we don't have to like them, we don't have to agree with them, but we do have to respect them because they are better at some things than we are. And their strengths reveal to us our weaknesses. And once our weaknesses are revealed to us, we can work on them. We can improve on them. Otherwise, we remain blind and eventually we'll go out of business.

So in the independent game of business, it's much healthier to view the other players as rivals so that we can learn from them and improve ourselves. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Rixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-2-2 in order to join tens of thousands. Thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Received Mindful Monday updates when I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about.

Also give you the opportunity to learn more about my book, which comes out next week. Welcome to Management. I wrote this book because I made so many mistakes when I got that initial promotion from individual contributor to leader. And fortunately, I've been able to learn for more than 350 podcast conversations and incredible mentors and coaches in my life to do it better. I've shared absolutely everything I know and what I've learned. I've distilled it down into its essence and put it in this book, Welcome to Management. It would mean so much to me if you want out and bought it. Pre-order on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or anywhere books are sold. I want to show my publisher, McGraw-Hill, that there are an army of learning

leaders out there ready to support this mission. Okay, now on tonight's featured leader to right Simon Sinek is back. He's probably best known for popularizing the concept of why. In his first TED Talk in 2009, more than 40 million views. Also written many bestselling books, including Start with Why, Leaders Eat Last, and most recently, The Infinite Game. A few of the topics we discussed, how excellent leaders have no competitors, and Simon shares what they have instead. Then the difference between being an infinite leader versus a finite leader and which is better for you. And then the two critical skills that excellent leaders possess and how you can develop them.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a special one. It's the great Simon Sinek. Simon, thank you so much for joining me for the third time here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome, man. Thanks. Nice to be back. I'm curious since some time has passed since the last time we talked, It's been two years. I am fascinated and study leaders who sustain excellence.

And I'm curious from your perspective, what have you found to be the commonalities among leaders who sustain excellence? There's a humility that they have. You know, as somebody gains more success, more notoriety, sometimes more influence or power, some of them start to believe that they deserve it or that the success is due to them. and the ones who I think continue to grow and continue to main remarkable loyalty and also the best decision-making capabilities don't believe their own hype. They know as much as they've achieved or as much as they know, there's still so much more that they don't know. And as much as they have how much power they have accumulated, it is a result of the help of lots and lots and lots of people.

And the ones that I find the most astonishing are the ones who are in these very, very senior positions, they do really have. remarkable power and they do really have remarkable experience. And if they said, I think I know what I'm doing when we had meetings with them, we'd probably be okay with it, even though we would be embarrassed. But they don't. They lean in with absolute curiosity. They want to hear what others have to say. They don't always agree, but they're interested in expanding and growing and know that there's so much more that they have to learn as well. That is consistent across the board. You personally have achieved levels of success that are in kind of otherworldly as far as your space. Speaking and certainly books and you look at your first, the TED talk where the microphone breaks,

you're just writing on a flip chart with circles and the thing goes absolutely viral. How have you maintained a level of, like what process do you have in place to maintain a level of humility? Um, despite I can't even imagine the amount of offers that both in numbers of, of requests as well as the dollar amounts being thrown at your way daily. How have you remained humble despite all of that happening? I'm fully aware that I'm the same idiot now as I was then. But many others don't think that.

You know, it's like I'm fully aware that the things that I was bad at, I'm still bad at, you know, and I think the way I think about my career and I have, for many years, which is I think of a vision like an iceberg. And for people who can see a vision of the future that does not yet exist, it's as if they can see just the tiniest piece of ice above the ocean, but they can imagine what's beneath it. And they get out there and they use their bully pulpit and they start talking about what they can imagine below the ocean. And the few early adopters who can say, I see what you can see, they start to help to build the movement or build the business. A little more iceberg shows, you have a little more success. The iceberg is the tangible things that other people can see.

And before you know, there's a little bit of iceberg. And people can say, oh, now I see the vision. And more people jump on and more people help and more people believe in the cause that you're trying to promote. And before you know, you've got quite a big piece of iceberg sitting above the ocean. And people look at you and say, oh, my God, you're so successful. Look at that iceberg. but I've always maintained, I've always maintained sort of a belief that there's so much more underneath the ocean that still has yet to be done.

So I don't really look above the ocean level to see how much iceberg has been achieved. I'm always thinking how much more work there is to be done. So when people pay me kind compliments and say you've done so much, what goes through my mind is, oh, there's still so much to do. And so I feel like I'm in service to revealing as much of that ice. iceberg as possible and creating a movement so that when my time comes, that other people will continue to work to reveal even more of the vision as possible. So I never look at what I've done. I keep thinking about what I still have to do. And I think that definitely helps keep me

focused on where I'm going rather than what I've done. Do you reflect, though? Are you a reflective person with your own work? I mean, I don't sit in the room and think about it. But, you know, sometimes people will bring it up and it happens in conversation, like now, being reflective right now. You know, it's, yeah, I mean, of course, you know, but again, I tend to be very future-focused. I tend to be very focused. You know, I don't, when things go badly, I tend to be pretty even keeled. I'm like, all right, well, let's move on, you know.

And when things go well, I tend to be like, all right, good, let's celebrate for a little bit. Let's move on, you know, like, there's more to do. do, you know? Yeah. So I tend to really be much more interested in what has yet to be done rather than what has been done. I heard an interview with Denzel Washington, and he was very similar. Like, he almost didn't even remember, or at least it seemed like some of the incredible

accomplishments in the movies, he was all about, I'm moving forward. I'm moving forward. And so what I'm trying to do is like, as someone who me hopefully becomes better at pattern recognition and I think that's one of the skills you develop after you interview hundreds and hundreds of people to identify some of the patterns among people who are sustaining excellence. And one of them I'm finding more and more is what you're just describing here is that despite immense success, your thought process is moving forward on what more you can learn, on following your genuine intellectual curiosity.

And that is what's going to continue or sustain some of the excellence. that you've achieved in the past. Well, I, you know, in the early days, let's start with Y, you know, people called me the Y guy. And I had this horrible fear that, you know, 30 years from then, I'd still be called the Y guy. And I know, I know people like that who have an entire career based on one idea that they had at the beginning, which is great. It's a good idea. But I, for my tastes and for my desires of these kind of things I want to sort of, I want to do in my life,

It's about new ideas. It's about building on ideas, not just looking for ways to re-articulate the same idea. And I don't knock it. When there's a good idea, it has great value and to be brought in many different ways. It's just not my thing. And recently, someone was interviewing me about Leaders E Last, which came out, I think, in 2014. And they were saying, Simon, in chapter seven, you talk about this. And I was like, you've got to remind me what I said.

I haven't read that book in years, you know? Yeah. And like they asked me, can you retell the story of this? I'm like, which story was that? You know, it's like, I haven't, I haven't read that book in years. I'm really interested in what, what is to come. And I believe in everything that I wrote. And I live my life still based on the principles that I wrote down and start with why.

But I, but I couldn't tell you what chapter 12 is, you know? Do you think you could deconstruct an unpacking? the skills that you developed to see more of the iceberg than other people or for another metaphor to see around corners. People like to follow leaders who make them feel more certainty. One thing that people don't like is uncertainty. And so when you find a leader who creates more certainty in your life, people follow. And that's one of the things that you do. How can, let's say, let's take it real practical here, Simon, there's a mid-level manager working within a big company

They have a team of 15 people. They're ambitious. They really care about leading and helping their team. They want to build coalitions of people to follow them. And so they want to develop this skill that Simon Sinek is so good at, which is seeing more of the iceberg than others. What are some ways to develop a skill to do that? Well, I think there's two parts. I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves, especially younger people, you know, because there's this constant question, what's your vision?

What's your vision? And everybody thinks that they have to have a unique vision of the world, which is just not true. There's only like 2% of the world's population that we would call visionaries, your Elon Musk's, you know, Richard Branson's, your, you know, Mark and Luther Kings, like these are the, these are the visionaries, you know, and we're not like them. You know, most of us are not like them. We will not have these incredible visions of the world. We don't have to all have a vision, but we all do have to find a vision. It doesn't have to be ours that we originated, but if there's a leader that we like that we're doing, we're just,

drawn to. If there is a vision of the world that inspires us that we want to commit our lives to building, then we can absolutely indeed take that vision and make it our own. You know, hundreds of thousands, millions of people took Martin Luther King's vision and made it their own. And they committed their lives to building what became their vision for a different kind of America. And even after Dr. King was assassinated, that vision continued because it was no longer his, it became of the people. This is really important that we don't have to stress about coming up with an original vision, but we do have to find one. And you can articulate it in their words or your own, which then goes to the second point, which is storytelling, which is, I think people

have to practice telling stories. Most people explain things in rational terms. I see people trying to explain the world, but rather than telling stories. Tell stories of individuals, tell stories of real case studies, tell stories of, you know, tell stories in metaphors, but tell stories that people can, we call it vision because we can see it. A story should help us imagine. It should spark something in our mind's eye. You know, I have a dream that one day little black children will hold hands on the playground with little white children, you know, Mark and Luther King said.

Well, you can imagine that. He's painting a scene. There's a wonderful story with Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, when he went to a big business conference, and he was, asked to talk about Nike. And we've all sat in conferences, heard CEOs talk about their companies, sometimes the ones they founded. And they stand up there and they tell you what the product is. And they tell you how much compounded growth they've had over the past 10, 20 years. They talk about where they're going, what their stock prices. They talk about the innovations.

They talk about all these generic descriptions of their remarkable companies that aren't that inspiring. That's not what Phil Knight did. He stood up on the stage and he said, if you have ever run for exercise, please stand up. Most of the room stood up. He says if you consistently run at least twice a week, please remain standing everybody else sit down. Most of the room sits down. If he says you run at least three times a week, rain or shine, please keep standing. And now most of the room has sat down and only a few people remain standing. And Phil Knight talks directly to them. He looks at each of them in the eye and he says, when you're out there when it's dark and cold and wet and you're running by yourself, we're the ones standing under the lamppost cheering you on.

That's how he described Nike. And when you hear that story, that Nike says that we're a brand for athletes and we believe everyone's an athlete, that when they say, just do it, it's not about winning. It's about those who do, those who try, those who get out there. That's why Nike exists. And you can understand his vision that he wants people to get out there. He wants people to do something. And now it's so consistent.

You see just that one story of how he explains his brand, how he explains his vision about those who get out there and those who do. And he wants everybody to get out there and do something. You have a crystal clear sense of where he's going and why he's doing it and why all the products now make sense. I love that story. And it reminds me a bit because I think we've had this similar experience, mine at a different company. but I'll explain mine than tee up yours. I was recently listening to a CEO speak to the team. I was to go next after the person.

And so I like to go early to hear what the leader's going to say to the team so I can refer to it and probably add on what they're saying. And I noticed that there was a heavy amount of talk about the competition, other companies who maybe are passing them up or have better products and how there was this big mission to beat the competition. And it's so interesting that at the same time, I'm reading the Infinite game, your book, and describing the fact that you gave a keynote at Microsoft and you gave a keynote at Apple. And can you describe the difference between what the message was at Apple versus Microsoft as well as the outcome?

So this was in the Steve Balmer days. Microsoft was really not what it used to be. And I gave a talk at an education summit for Microsoft. I also gave a talk at an education summit for Apple. At the Microsoft Summit, the vast majority of the executives spent the vast majority of their presentations talking about how to beat Apple. It was clear that their sites were set on upstaging Apple. At the Apple Summit, 100% of the executives spent 100% of their presentations talking about how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn. One was obsessed with revealing the iceberg, and the other one was a lot of,

obsessed with beating their competition. So guess which one was struggling with issues of trust and cooperation and innovation at the time, right? So at the end of my talk at Microsoft, they gave me a gift. They gave me the new Zoom when it was a thing. This was Microsoft's response to the iPod. And this little piece of technology, the game was actually pretty good. It was actually pretty amazing. Beautifully designed and it worked. The user interface was really intuitive. So at the end of my Apple talk, I was sharing a taxi with a senior Apple executive and I, course, I couldn't help myself. I had to stir the pot. So I turned to him and I said, you know, Microsoft gave me their new Zune and it is so much better than your iPod Touch.

And he looked at me and he said, I have no doubt. And the conversation was over. Because basically what he understood was in the infinite game of business where there is no such thing as a finish line. There's nobody's declared the winner of business. It doesn't exist. There's no agreed upon metrics, no agreed upon timeframes. It's all arbitrary. What he is, understood in the infinite game of business that the only true competitor is yourself. But the goal is not to beat Microsoft because sometimes they have the better product and sometimes you have the better product. That's how it always works in business. Sometimes you're ahead and sometimes you're behind, but there's no such thing as being the winner or being the best. It doesn't exist. And the only true

competitor in the infinite game is yourself. It's a game of constant improvement. How do I make my vision clearer this year than it was last year? How do I make my team stronger this year than it was last year? How do I improve the quality of leadership training so that it's better this year than it was last year, the quality of my product, the quality of my marketing, the quality of my communication. How do I make it better this year than it was last year? And we have to stop thinking about the other players in the game as competitors. Competitors are there to be beaten, but only in a finite game like baseball or football where there's agreed upon metrics and agreed upon rules and we know who all the players

are and we know what the finish line looks like. We don't know these things in business. They don't exist. The only reason we declare our numbers at the end of the year is because that's when we pay taxes. If taxes were every 18 months, then that would be the standard time frame. And we have to stop thinking with the other players as competitors

and start thinking to them as rivals. And some of those rivals are worthy of comparison. Worthy rivals are the other players in the game who are better at some things than you are. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we don't have to like them, we don't have to agree with them, but we do have to respect them

because they are better at some things than we are. And their strengths reveal to us our weaknesses. And once our weaknesses are revealed to us, we can work on them. We can improve on them. Otherwise, we remain blind and eventually we'll go out of business. So in the independent game of business, it's much healthier to view the other players as rivals so that we can learn from them and improve ourselves.

Why do you think CEOs really smart people who've been successful, right? Steve Bomber went on to buy the clippers and he's got a good team. Some people could argue he's done incredibly incredibly well Why do people struggle with this? Why is this an issue? So we're defining incredibly well that he made billions That's how we're defining they did incredibly well So if you had to so so he he made his money because he was an early employee of Microsoft He's an extremely talented executive who worked very well alongside a visionary called Bill Gates

However, when he was promoted to the the visionary position, the CEO position, which is not an operating position, it's a visionary position, but he's still an operator, who ran the company much more about the numbers in the short term and much less about the long term in the vision. He left the company in a shambles. So was he successful? Because he bought the clippers? Like, is that success? What's Steve Bomber's legacy? He owned the clippers? You know, what's Bill Gates' legacy? He completely changed the way we do business. He helped put a PC on every desk. I mean, you can define success however you want. Yeah. No. Let's be very careful about saying, hey, he was successful. Maybe he's

doing everything right. He was successful in one kind of metric, which is financial. And he was, he was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time as a talented executive to be hired early on by a visionary and be the number two. Yeah. It's a good point. One of the things you write about is great leaders are the ones who think beyond short-term versus long-term. They are the ones who know it's not about the next quarter or the next election, but about the next generation. I've worked in corporate America where there was such a push quarter to quarter. And that, you know what goes with that, right?

Cost cutting, doing kind of weird things to make sure revenue shows up on the balance sheet. that we hit our quarter, those types. So there are people, though, who say, Simon, like, it may be easier for us sitting here on the outside who are not inside the company to say, oh, that's bad. You shouldn't think that way. But they're the ones on the inside who are saying, if I don't do this, I'm going to get fired or the board's going to get rid of me or I'm a mid-level manager and my boss won't, they won't keep me. And I love doing this. What do you say to those people with that in mind, the long, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, they won't keep me. the thinking about the long game versus the short game.

Look, we're not going to change the way business works overnight. Let us, let us, let us be clear that the way that very many of the standard business functions today are not quote unquote norms of business. They began 30 or 40 years ago. You know, in the late 1970s, Milton Friedman, an economist named Milton Friedman, theorized that the responsibility of business was to maximize profit within the bounds of the law. And that has become the mantra of business today, maximize profits. If you ask people, why do businesses exist to say to maximize profit? This was just the theory proposed, and it was embraced in the boom years of the 80s and 90s. And as a result of the embracing of this very, very basic definition, what about ethics?

Is ethics not a part of the responsibility of business? Is it just profit at all costs? We know what that gets us. And so the problem is, is this definition of business drove some rather new, of how to run a business. For example, the use of mass layoffs on a regular basis, on an annualized basis to balance the books did not exist in the United States prior to the 1980s. Did not exist. It was popularized in the 80s and 90s by CEOs like Jack Welch of GE and those like him. The concept of shareholder supremacy where we prioritize the once needs and desires

of an external constituency over the customer and the employee, which is like the coach of a team trying to build a great team by taking advice from the fans rather than listening to the players. That concept of maximizing shareholder value and shareholder supremacy did not exist in the United States prior to the 70s, 80s and 90s. It was really popularized as a concept in the 80s and 90s. And things like Rankin, and the dismantling of the Glass-Steagel Act, which was passed after the Great Depression to prevent another Great Depression from happening, all in the name of corporate profit have done great damage to our economy. Between the Great Depression and the dismantling of Glass-Steagall in the 80s and 90s, we had zero stock market crashes. Since the dismantling of

those reforms, we had 1987, 2008, 1987, the dot-com boom and 2008. We've had three significant stock market crashes as a result of the lack of reform focused on the short term. So I don't believe that we're going to just overnight change the way business is done. But if we want to see it changed and believe there's a better way, then all of us have to take some responsibility. We all have to be the leaders we wish we had. Of course, you're not going to change the way your CEO leads. Of course, no number of anonymously sent books to your CEO is going to change the way that they lead.

But we can all become the leaders we wish we had. We can take care of the people to the left and to the right, ensure that someone has their back, that wants to see them grow as people, go home at the end of the day, feeling like someone cares about them, going home at the end of the day, fulfilled by their work. And what you'll find is those teams, regardless of your rank or position in the team, you can still be a leader. Because leadership has nothing to do with rank. It has everything to do with seeing those around us rise. And those teams tend to be higher-performing teams, which means senior leadership either leaves you alone,

or they're curious about what you're doing because they want to implement that across the rest of the company. And then somebody from that team will get moved to another team and bring everything they've learned about leadership to this new team and that will be a high performing,

highly functioning, high trusting, high cooperation team. And before you know it, the tail wags the dog. Before you know it, we've completely changed the company. It took us 30 years to convert away from when people would devote their entire lives to one company to get to the point where employees don't show a company loyalty, because quite frankly, companies don't show their employees loyalty. It's not a meritocracy anymore.

Nothing personal. It's just business, we're told, which is complete nonsense. Business is one of the most personal things in the world. We spend more time at work than we do with our families. It's always about people. So are there risks involved? Absolutely there are. And sometimes, some of our leaders will put their necks out to do the right thing, and some of them may lose their jobs accordingly. And here's the amazing thing. Others will be inspired by their courage. Others might leave with them. Others may continue to do what they're doing. And at the end of the day, there is risk, but there is very little risk in showing up to work today to be the leader you wish you had. But to rationalize a way that I can do bad things because, you know, I got to put food

on the table or everyone else is doing it or that's just the industry standard, then we end up with examples like Wells Fargo where thousands of employees opened 3.5 million fake bank accounts so they could meet their numbers. That's what we end up with. We end up with a horrible case of ethical fading when we can rationalize our way, our abhorrent behavior. I would rather we hold ourselves to higher standards. I would rather we show up every single day and take care of each other. Like George Eastman, he was not just great for Kodak back in 1920. but great for the game of business as a whole. Exactly.

Exactly. Right. He created employee incentives that were not happening up to that point. Stock options, six days tuition, reimbursement, all and on and on. And yet you say, well, of course, that's just normal. Well, it wasn't. And I think that's, maybe you know, you know more about the story. You've written about it.

But hearing stories about George Eastman, who I had not read a lot about until reading your work, was an inspiring moment for me as a leader. So this is what's really important, which is finite players in the game of business. In other words, people who are playing to win or be the best or be number one, they hoard information and they only want to do things that make themselves better.

Infinite players want to play for the good of the game. And you can tell the infinite players because they share some of their best practices because they think it's just good for business. Like Netflix shares its employee handbook because they think other people should embrace the way that they do things, because they think it's good for business.

And the container store shares the way they do things. Barry Waymiller shares the way they reward people. A lot of the great companies who've had a positive impact in business share the way they do things because they think it's good for business. And George Eastman was no different. George Eastman pioneered things that we consider normal today. As you said, you gave that wonderful list, paying for things like outside education,

paying for things like health insurance, sick days. All of these things didn't exist. prior to George Eastman. He was quite a pioneer in business, and he wanted other companies to do what he was doing because he thought it was good for business. Patagonia, they share, they're totally transparent with what they do right and what they do wrong because they think it's good for business. They think other companies should be as transparent as they are. So you can tell when companies are infinite-minded, because they're not trying to make themselves better. They're actually trying to make all companies better. They're trying to make the way we conduct business better. And these are the organizations and these are the leaders I admire.

Me too. Simon, you're sitting in front of a young, ambitious, intelligent, thoughtful person who says, I want to make a positive contribution on the world. What are some pieces of general life advice that you would give me to help? There's an entire section in the bookshop called Self-Help, and there is no section in the bookshop called Help Others. And frankly, I think we can do a lot better at taking care of people to the left of us and taking care of people to the right of us. We've become an unbelievably self-interested and selfish society to the point where we are happy to pull out our phones at a dinner table because, I don't know, it beeped or we got an alert for an Instagram post and we'll just swipe and check it real quick.

You know, and we forget, forget about how it makes us feel because it exaggerates feelings of loneliness and isolation in our own. lives, but we forget that it has an impact in the person whose life we're sitting across from, that we've all sat there when somebody pulls out their phone when we're there and it makes us feel like we don't exist. Well, we're doing that to people every day. When we put our phones on the table at a conference room in a meeting, we're telling the rest of the room, you're not that important to me. When we hold our phones and we talk to our friends, we're telling them you're not that

important to me. When we put our phones face up or face down at a meal table, we're telling the people across from us, you're not that important to me. When we break up with someone by ghosting them, instead of having a fight or getting some closure or calling them and just talking it through and we become so confrontation avoidant, why? Because it's easier for us, even though it makes it harder for other people. We've shied away from doing things that are good for other people so that we can continue to do things that are right for us. And it comes at the expense of our own happiness, our own joy and our own health. And worse, at the expense of the happiness,

and health of the people that we supposedly love. I think we should all pay a little more attention to the people around us. Everybody's obsessed with work-life balance. Well, I got news for you. No amount of yoga will fix that uncomfortable feeling that you have. And when you go to yoga and you say,

I love being present for that hour, I love meditating because I love being present. That is a selfish disposition. You are not present until someone says you are. The reason we meditate is because we learn to be totally there and with it. We learn to put thoughts out of our mind and focus and what somebody else is saying.

So we're sitting across the table from someone, they feel like we're listening. They feel like we hear them. And at the end of our time with them, they will say to us, I feel heard. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being present. Congratulations.

Now you are present. All of these things, meditation, yoga, they're acts of service. They're not to help us find work-life balance. They're there to help us help other. find work-life balance, to help others feel like they matter in the world. I think we can all do a much better job of just being more self-aware and remembering we're not the only people in the world, and we do have to take care of the people around us.

And if we do, they'll take care of us. One more. Leadership is a choice. You have to make the choice to be a leader. Why should someone choose to lead? Why should someone choose to be a parent? You know, everyone has the capacity to be a parent. Not everybody wants to and not everybody should.

Leadership is the same. Everyone has the capacity to be a leader. Not everybody wants to and not everybody should. And the reason to become a leader is the exact same reason to become a parent. Because you actually want to see others grow. You actually want to commit your life to a life of service. Being a parent is unbelievably hard work. It's 24-7.

It's not 9-5. Leadership is the same. Your job is 9-to-5. leadership is 24-7. It's accepting a new responsibility. I'm no longer responsible for the results. I'm no longer responsible for getting my job done. I'm now responsible for taking care of the people who are responsible for the results. I'm now responsible for the people who are responsible for getting the job done. It's an entirely different skill set. Just like becoming a parent as an entirely different skill set and an entirely different way of life. If you like the

idea of taking care of others, then you may be a candidate to be a leader. Some people fall into They don't think that they would be good leaders. And when given the position, when given the opportunity, they actually thrive. They embrace it. Just like some people have kids and they're deathly afraid. One of my best friends called me up the night before his wife was due freaking out. He's become one of the most remarkable fathers I've ever met. This happens.

People actually, when they find themselves with the opportunity to lead, and again, this has nothing to do with rank or position. You can be the lowest level employee and still be the best leader on the team because you've made the choice to look after the people on the team. That's what leadership is. Leadership is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in your charge. And the choice to do it is one of the most gratifying things you can ever do in the world. There's a wonderful leader I know by the name of Colonel D.D. Hathill, she's in the United States Air Force. And she had an amazing opportunity.

She was thrust into a leadership position when she was deployed to Bollad Air Base in the United States. Iraq. And she went through a whole journey of self-discovery. But when she came back, I sat down with her within a week after she got back to America. And I asked her, how was it? She told me the story and all the ups and downs. And then at the end of her story, she started crying and said, I've never experienced a joy so great as seeing those, seeing others achieve things they never thought they were able to do. That's the reason to become a leader. Thank you, man. Simon, as always, really appreciate it.

Look forward to the next one. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? You know, I'm in all the usual places. Just so you know, it feels kind of weird going to that after I'm just sitting here, forgetting that I'm supposed to talk, listening in a Simon Cynic trance. Like, that's legitimately how I feel right now. So I do have to thank you for that. Just search, just Google Simon Sinek. You'll find him.

I'm so appreciative of you, man. Thank you for being here. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thanks for helping me spread the message. I appreciate it. All right, man. I'll talk to you.

Wow. I was in a trance there towards the end of that conversation. It's almost like he has this hypnotic voice that makes you forget everything else that's going on and you pay attention. And I think there's a learning there that science. Simon's messages are always wrapped with these incredible real-life stories. And not only does he tell you to become a great storyteller, but he models that behavior. And that's one we all can work on getting better through repetition and practice and study and working with others. I love that part of the talk.

And then infinite leaders don't have competitors. They have rivals. I thought this is a unique and useful way to view your work and the work. because playing the comparison game and feeling like everyone is competitive and there's not enough to go around can be so damaging and just quite frankly not a very happy way to live so I liked that spin and then there's an entire book section of self-help but not one that says help others really knocked me back and it helped also answer his question of why lead and that's because you want to see others grow if you care to see others grow if you care to see other succeed. That's why you lead. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. I absolutely love these conversations with Simon. If you did, I'd greatly appreciate it if you would spread the message one person at a time. Word of mouth marketing is as powerful as it gets. Tell somebody who perhaps has never listened to a podcast before, check out this episode of the Learning

Leader Show with the legendary Simon Sinek. It could help you. Thank you once again for continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis for that. I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you next week. Can't wait. Okay. Thank you so much.

I was really getting into trance there. I really appreciate just how much, it's obvious how much you care and the effort you put into it. And for that, I'm just so grateful, man. I really am. You could easily mail it in and still be great. And you just don't do that. And that means a lot to me. So thank you.

and it'll mean a lot to my listeners as well. Thank you again, and I mean that sincerely. Thank you for giving me a platform to help share these ideas. I really appreciate it. Always, always. All right, man. Until next time. Thanks, Simon.

Bye. Bye.