The Resilient Mind - From Pretending to Purpose: The Day I Stopped Faking It - Simon Sinek

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Simon Sinek is a British-American author, speaker, and thought leader best known for his groundbreaking concept of the “Why” — the idea that people and organizations thrive when they understand the deeper purpose behind what they do. He rose to prominence with his TED Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” one of the most viewed of all time. Through his bestselling books like Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, and The Infinite Game, Sinek explores leadership, trust, and human connection in business and life. His work inspires individuals and companies worldwide to lead with empathy, purpose, and long-term vision.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠This episode is brought to you in partnership with Steven Bartlett for more inspiring videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO🌍 The Resilient Mind Podcast is a proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to from pretending to purpose the day I stopped faking it with Simon Sinek. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. Was there a point in your life where you'd felt like you drifted so far from your why that you realized the importance of it for the first time? Well, the simple answer is yes. It was that drifting. that set me on the path to find it in the first place,

to even articulate that idea. I had what a lot of people would be considered sort of a good life as living the proverbial American dream. You know, I quit my job to start my own business. The business was doing okay, made an okay living, had great clients, did good work. And yet I'd lost my passion for that and didn't want to wake up and go to work anymore,

which was embarrassing because superficially everything was just fine. I was pretending that I was happier, more in control, and more successful than I was or felt, which is quite frankly pretty draining and pretty dark. And it wasn't until a very, very close friend of mine came to me and said, something's wrong. She was the first one to notice something. And I came clean, and I sort of let it all out.

and it was that catharsis that sort of lifted this heavy weight off my shoulders. I was no longer alone. It was no longer a secret. And all of the energy that was previously going into lying, hiding, and faking now went into finding a solution. There was a compilence of events.

It's not, you know, all of these histories are perfectly neat and clean and that's not really how it is or was. But to compress it and oversimplify it, I made this discovery based on the biology of human decision making that every single one of us knows what we do. Some of us know how we do it, but very, very few of us can clearly articulate why we do what we do. And I realized that was what I was missing. So to answer your question, yes, 100%, the realization of the why was my loss

of it. And I realized, I knew what I did, and I was good at it. I knew how I was different or special or stood out from the crowd. And that was my differentiating value proposition. And I was articulate about it. But I couldn't tell you why I was waking out of bed every day to do it. you know and I would give some nonsense entrepreneur answer because I want to be my own boss and we're like yeah sure but that's not a reason to get out of bed every day so a why is fully formed by the time we're in our mid to late teens the youngest person I've done a Y discovery for was 16 and it worked the process worked and what I've learned from just doing hundreds of these over the years is that a Y is always positive it's always striving for something so like we're not

inspired against something. We're not inspired to stop something. We're inspired to build something or create something or advance something. Though it may have been born out of trauma, there's usually a silver lining that gives us that cause, especially trauma that happens in the middle of our lives. September 11th is often looked to as people found purpose. You know, we are who we are. Like I said, we're fully formed by the experiences we have when we're young, you know, at a pretty young age. And now the opportunity life presents us is to make decisions that either keeps us in balance

with who we really are or not. And I think one of the reasons most of us feel discomfort or don't feel ourselves or don't know who we are is because we're making decisions that are inconsistent with that true cause, with that why. So you raise the case of individual athletes who become champions and then suffer depression.

It's a fairly common story. You hear this from Olympians. You know, Michael Phelps becomes the most meddled, you know, Olympian of all time immediately suffers depression. Andre Agassi becomes the most storied, you know, tennis player of all time immediately becomes depressed. And what I've learned from talking to some of these, these particularly athletes, but I think it happens in the business world as well, which is from a very young age, they set themselves a goal. that in my words would be a very selfish goal. I want to be the best at X, the best tennis player, the best golfer, the best whatever.

And the way Olympians put it, which I get a kick out of it, is I want to win the Olympics. I'm like, well, you can be a winner in your sport, you know? But that's an aside. And their entire lives from pretty young ages, every decision they're making is to help them advance this finite goal. and all of their relationships are, can you help me achieve my goal?

Right? And if you can no longer help me achieve my goal, I don't need you anymore as a coach or even a friend. And there's huge sacrifices, missing of birthdays, missing of Christmases, you know, missing of major life events because I have to practice so I can achieve my goal. And when they get interviewed on the news, you know, or at the Olympics or whatever, you know, why do you do it? And they all say, well, I'm doing it to inspire the little kids, which is complete bullshit. You know, if you look at all of their vision boards from when they were younger of pictures of podiums and medals and money and Lamborghini, it's not a single little child on there of the people you're doing it for. It's just a lucky strike extra.

I mean, absolutely you do inspire children. But that's not the reason you did it. You just got that, you know, like I said, it's sort of a twofer. And then when they achieve or don't achieve this thing and then can no longer compete for it, they've set their entire path and all their relationships on these finite selfish goals. And so when it's complete,

they realize they don't really have a lot of friends around them. They don't really have a lot of close relationships. They don't really even have a sense of purpose because they've been spent the past 20 years or so with one purpose, which was this finite goal, which now has run out. And so they're very purposeless. and I see this in Broadway performers

who set their whole life to be on the West End or be on Broadway. You know, every class, every tap dancing class, every singing class, they make it, they get there, and then depression, or at least malaise. Or senior executive, same thing. If I just make a million dollars,

you know, if I just become a millionaire, then I'll feel. And the problem with all of those things is, as I said before, they are selfish. It is your goal for your reasons, which is not fulfilling for any social animal for any human being. You know, our sense of joy and fulfillment and love and purpose comes from our ability to serve another human being. Have a child. Tell me how your life changes. Fall in love. Tell me how your life changes. You know, think about all the stupid things,

irrational things we've done for love. We get on planes and travel on the world, just, to say I love you. You know, we do ridiculous things. And it all feels worth it. And the sacrifices we make for a child all feel worth it. But these are no longer for us. And these things will live on beyond our own lives. They are not finite. They are infinite. And there's nothing wrong with personal achievement. There's nothing wrong with setting goals. But it has to be in the context of something even bigger. In general, team sports don't suffer this because you had to do it together. You know, It's usually individual athletes who suffer this more often. And so there's one of the athletes I would point to

is a guy by the name of Curtis Martin. Curtis is a Hall of Fame NFL footballer. And he only started playing football basically to stay out of trouble. He did it as a favor to his mom just so he wouldn't get him. He grew up in a really bad neighborhood in Philadelphia. He basically kept him out of trouble. And it turns out he was really good at it. And when he realized he was good at it, he realized that by being good at something,

it will give him the power to actually give back later. And he made this realization, especially when he went to college on scholarship and then made it to the NFL, he realized the better he was at the sport. It wasn't about propelling his own career. It was about when he leaves this career. He has a platform that would be bigger than the platform he has now. And so he was driven and driven and driven, not so that he could be the best, not so that he could make the most money.

In fact, he made a lot less money than a lot of other players of his rank. Not that he could be rich or famous or any of these things. He did it so that he could build his platform so that he could give back later. So when he retired from the NFL, he wasn't lost. He wasn't searching. He knew exactly what the next step was because being an elite athlete to the highest level possible was only step one. And to see one's life as a continuum rather than an event is much healthier. You know, I'm not a huge fan of the term self-improvement, right?

But I do like the idea of awareness, self-awareness. You know, we all live with blind spots. We all live with missing gaps in pieces of information, which will, by the way, last for the rest of our lives. And there are some people who choose to live a life where living with those gaps is acceptable, and they never fill them in, and we would say that they remain stagnant.

And arguably, either mentally or physically unhealthy, or gaining, you know, getting unhealthier as they get older, you know. For someone, for anyone who wants to be a better version of themselves, a more aware of a version of themselves, you, we, I, seek out information. And that comes in all kinds of forms, right? It can be in a relationship. So for example, I went and took a listening class.

Actually, I should preface with, I was dating someone, and she accused me of being a bad listener. And I was like, you do know what I do for a living, right? Like, I'm a really good listener, so I don't know what you're talking about, you know? And then I took this listening class. Turns out I'm an absolutely brilliant listener with people who I'll never see again for the rest of my life. but amongst my friends and family, appalling. Appalling. So I had this basic skill set that I never applied

with the people closest to me and gave myself an out because, quote, unquote, I knew how to listen. And so I realized I was a terrible listener. This was a blind spot. This was a gap. And having somebody love me tell me that didn't work, didn't believe them until, you know, this objective outsider,

or at least I just took this class and came to this realization. That was brilliant. That awareness of the blind spot and the awareness of the skills that I need to be a better brother, son, boyfriend, friend, you know, I had to learn how to hold space for someone. And then practice. That's awareness. And I think our health is awareness.

Unfortunately, some people wait for the breakup to learn that they're bad listeners. Some people wait for the heart attack to realize they're eating poor. You know, that's awareness. You get awareness by getting a punch in the face. And I think it's a responsibility for every human being should they want to have value in the lives of others to seek awareness in how they show up in the world and how the world impacts them,

their mental health, their physical health, their ability to maintain relationships and nurse relationships. And you hear me, I mean, you hear me say this over again. It's a repeating pattern, which is for those who want to show up better in the lives of others, which is I see being healthy as a service to others. I see being a better listener being a service. I see everything in terms of service to others.

There are benefits to you as well, of course. But I think we've neglected for decades the socialness of our animal. And social media and cell phones and the ubiquity of those technologies have complicated our ability to be human. There are others who comment on this as well. Brené Brown talks about this, where we have a young generation that has mistaken vulnerability and broadcast.

Right? Where you sit in your room by yourself, put your phone on record and make a video of yourself crying because of the loss of a relationship and then posting that on Instagram or Snapchat or YouTube or TikTok or whatever your media of choices.

and the hashtag is just being vulnerable. Right? And there's nothing vulnerable about that. You were by yourself broadcasting to the world, live or video to it doesn't matter. Do that exact same thing with the person you hurt. That is way more difficult. Don't leave a voice memo saying,

hey, I'm really sorry, just taking accountability. Call them or go visit them and look them in the eye and say that exact same sentence that you just left a voice memo for. That's vulnerability. That's really hard and requires practice, and we avoid it because it's difficult. We avoid it because it's uncomfortable. We choose broadcast, not because it's better, it's because it's easier, and then mistake the two. And so the reason to learn to be vulnerable is not for ourselves, it's for our service to others.

And I talk about this all the time, which we've confused these things. And once again, going back to what we were talking about before, we've weirdly taken these very pro-social activities and made them selfish. Like, go us. My biggest pep, I'll give you my biggest pepheave, and I've talked about this one before, but it drives me nuts. I was in this meeting once, and there was a woman next to me who was this big timey yoga instructor, apparently. And the entire meeting was a big group of us. She was on her phone under the desk, under the table. And I sort of sneaked over a look and it's not like she was like there was a family member in hospital and she wanted to just, you know, stay in touch. She was on social media. I could see. And at one point,

the conversation at the table turned to being present. And she popped up her head and said, that's why I love yoga because it helps me be present. Of which I'm thinking, you're an idiot, you know? And I started to realize we've confused things here, which is we don't get to decide when we're present. We get to practice being present. But you actually are not present until someone else says you are. You don't get to sit with a friend and be like, I feel present. If they don't feel it, that's like me saying, I'm a great listener, except I'm not. Right? I don't get to self-assign these accolades, especially when they're social. They can only be assigned by another. And so for anyone who's ever practiced meditation, there are absolutely benefits to us without a doubt. And it

Those are important mental and physical health benefits of meditation and mindfulness, and we should practice those for sure. But there's also that what I think is the primary reason, somewhat consider secondary reason, which is if you practice meditation, for example, you learn to focus on one thing, your mantra, a sound, whatever it is. You learn to your breath. You don't think of nothing. You think of one thing.

You focus on one thing, right? And if something interrupts that thing, you have a thought. Did I leave the washing machine on? You know, you label it a thought and you push it out of your head and you say, I'll deal with it later. And that's the whole idea. It's total focus and the ability to put your thoughts out of your head to stay focused on this one thing. Now think about when you're sitting listening with a friend who's going through a hard time. Are you listening or are you waiting for your turn to speak?

Right? The whole meditation practice that you've been doing is now valuable in this moment, where you are focused entirely on what they're saying to you. every distraction, every screech of a car tire outside, everybody who's talking around you, you don't hear any of it, you only hear what they're saying to you, or entirely focused on what they're saying to you. And when you have your own thoughts of advice you'd like to give

or things you want to tell them, oh my God, me too, that happened to me as well, right? You say, nope, that's not important in this moment, and you put it out of your head and deal with it later. And at the end of that conversation, your friend will say, thank you, I feel heard, or thank you for being there for me, or thank you for holding space for me,

or thank you for listening. And those are all indications that congratulations you've been present for another. And I think what gives our lives purpose is not to wake up every morning to learn meditation so that we can be present for ourselves, though that is valuable. What gives our lives purpose

is to do these things for another. There's nothing wrong with doing things and enjoying the benefit of those things yourself, by all means. But the sense of the deep feeling sense of purpose and meaning to one's life or someone's work only comes when those things are for another. And in my view, primarily for another,

where our benefit is secondary. You can't have equal. There's no such thing as equal. Because at one point, one of those things will have to be sacrificed for the other. And do you sacrifice your spouse's love so that you can stay in love, or do you sacrifice your comfort?

Do you sacrifice your girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse's comfort, so that you can be better, or do you sacrifice your comfort so they can feel better? That's an obvious, it's obvious. Well, it's the same here. It's the same analogy, which is I choose to sacrifice my happiness, my joy, my comfort, my Lamborghini, in this moment, not forever, but in this moment, for you, for you my employee, for you, my friend, you know,

I will delay so that you can have. And that's where the joy and love of business, relationships, friendships, come from, you know. There's a great irony in all of this, which is to sacrifice for another, it really is the most beautiful thing we can ever do. I mean, that's kind of what love is. It's sacrificing for another. And all of these things,

whether it's learning to be a better communicator, learning mindfulness and meditation, being in shape, if you can translate those things in for another, all of those things start to have a higher purpose. Self-awareness, I don't know if that's a real thing, but self-awareness seems to be

the foundation of personal growth, right? So becoming aware about something in our lives. And people can read as, I always say, people can read as many books as they like, but if they're unable to read themselves, they'll never really learn a thing. For me, and I wrote that a couple of years ago when I had a guy in my office who read every single book.

He was actually one of the people that always came in with your books, right? He read every single book I've ever seen. He knew every book, but he never changed. And there was things within him that he wasn't self-aware about that I believe were the reason why he couldn't. evolve even though he was taking in so much information. How does one and go about, what are the key ways we can go about

increasing our sense of self-awareness so that we can grow and evolve? Such a good question. It's kind of like people like that are a little bit like yo-yo-dieters. They do every diet, but they're not healthy people. I read every book, but I'm not growing. And you can't assess yourself.

You know, it's like, I mean, you know this from work, right? Which is at some point, somebody's going to have to give you feedback. At some point, you have to give somebody else feedback. Like, self-assessment is a thing, but it's not the only thing. It's a thing. It's a data point. And I'm a huge believer in self-assessment, but you have to have that buttressed with the

assessments of others because we are blind very often. We're social animals. We cannot do this thing called career or life alone. We're just not that smart. We're not that strong. We're not that aware. We're just not that good. As social animals, we actually need each other to work.

watch our backs and tell us what's working and what's not working. And I think for somebody who goes through life and reads those books, all the books, you know, I get good on them, I guess, but are they asking for help? Are they asking for insight from others as opposed to just reading it and agreeing with it and thinking they're making the changes? I know my own personal journey and I try and I do think of myself as I work hard to be self-aware and I work hard to self-evaluate. But I have seen in my own life, my ability to truly demonstrate real awareness and move further down the journey and path called life as opposed to staying stagnant came when I let others help me. You know, we don't build trust by offering help.

We build trust by asking for it because it's a vulnerable thing to ask for help. Will you help me is a very, very vulnerable statement? Can I help you? Not so much. an act of service. But the act of service really comes from allowing somebody else to serve you.

Which it becomes this whole weird, twisted, circular thing. You know? It's like, I mean, I'll give you a silly example. People who are bad at taking compliments. Right? You're so smart. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Right? We downplay it because we're embarrassed by the compliment. Right? But a compliment is a gift. Somebody's paying you a gift. gift. Now, if somebody handed you a present, you wouldn't push it back because it would be rude, right? You would accept it. Whether you like it or not, or whether it makes you comfortable or not, you accept it with gratitude, and then you go evaluate it later. Oh, that's an ugly sweater,

you know, but you're still grateful for the thought and the gift. And it compliments the same. And I think all of these things, the willingness to, you know, to deny someone else the joy of giving you the gift of the compliment and to deny someone else, the intensity and joy of being there for someone else, again, I think is selfish. Never asking for help is selfish. Asking for help is a great act of service because you allow someone else to have the joy of sacrifice. And it goes backwards and forwards. It's not one-sided. And this is where I think great relationships work, which is we take turns. And sometimes it's really difficult when both of us are in need at the same time. That gets really difficult. Good thing we have friends. So, you know, the height of COVID, um,

I have a couple of my friends. They're sort of remarkable high performing individuals, both of them. And one of them called me out of the blue. She went for a long walk. She says, I'm doing really badly. And I need to talk to you. And I don't want to talk to my husband because he's doing really badly as well. And I fear that if I talk to him, he doesn't have the energy for me,

but I know who will want to be there for me, which will make it worse for him. We're both really struggling. can you have some time to talk you know and i mean a the willingness to ask for help be the willingness to understand that asking her husband for help would make it even more difficult for him it was just a very sophisticated and beautiful moment and to this day we became not only did we become closer for it but her husband and i became closer for it as well because i was there for her when he knew he couldn't be and this is why we have friends like i again we can't do this alone.

Not only are we social animals, we're tribal animals. You know, it's more than a friend. It takes a community. And I think one of the, you know, we're always talking about what we're eating and we're talking about what we're,

you know, what supplement we're taking or we're always talking about those kinds of things or what book we're reading. But we don't do enough talking about how we are nursing our close personal relationships, how we're taking care of those closest to us and making sure that the tribe is strong.

The crew is taken care of, you know? And I think there's a lot more work that we can do in that arena. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.