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we don't teach leaders how to have uncomfortable conversations we don't teach students how to have uncomfortable conversations you tell me which is going
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to be more valuable for the rest of your life how to have a difficult conversation or trigonometry described
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as a Visionary thinker with a rare intellect multiple time best-selling author S cynic every single one of us
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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
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and I think one of the reasons most of us don't know who we are is because we're making decisions that are inconsistent with that true cause with
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that why there's a great irony in it in all of this I had what a lot of people
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would be considered a good life and yet didn't want to wake up and go to work anymore why
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I we cannot do this thing called Career or life alone we're just not that smart we're not that strong we're just not
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that good for anyone who wants to be a better version of themselves purpose comes
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from it's one of the best podcasts I've ever done so without further Ado I'm
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Steven Bartlett and this is the dire of a CEO USA Edition I hope nobody's listening but if you are then please
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keep this to [Music]
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yourself Simon my introduction to you was this
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book start with why and it hung on the walls of some of my offices around the world for a long time and then my
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employees would come in after reading the book and evangelize about it and it would come up in meetings and in discussions and in Creative brainstorms
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Etc over and over and over again the question I wanted to ask you was was there a point in your life where you'd
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felt like you drifted so far from your why that you realized the importance of
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it for the first time well the simple answer is yes um it was that drifting
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that set me on the path to find it in the first place to to to even articulate
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that idea I had what a lot of people would be
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considered sort of a good life as living the proverbial American Dream you know I
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quit my job to start my own business the business was doing okay made an okay
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living had great clients did good work and yet I'd lost my passion for that and
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didn't want to wake up and go to go to work anymore which was embarrassing because superficially everything was
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just fine I was pretending that that I was happier more in control and more
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successful than I was or felt um which is quite frankly pretty draining and pretty dark and it wasn't until a very
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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
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and I sort of let it all out and uh it was that catharsis that sort of lifted
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this heavy weight off my shoulders I was no longer alone it was no longer a secret um and all of the energy that was
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previously going into lying hiding and faking now went into finding a solution there was a complt of events
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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
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compress it and make 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
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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
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was what I was missing so to answer your your question yes 100% the realization
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of the why was my loss of it and I realized I knew what I did and I was good at it and I knew how I was
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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
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tell you why I was waking at a bed every day to do it you know and I would give some nonsense entrepreneur answer
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because I want to be my own boss and like yeah sure but that's not a reason to get out of bed every day this got me
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thinking a lot about the guests that I have sit here and also my own story where
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sometimes I think people's why or the thing that's been driving them is in fact some kind of trauma or
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insecurity I think because you sit here with people in their whe whe whether it's Israel adna the UFC champion who's
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the current maybe world's best UFC fighter he was battered and bullied as a kid being the only black kid in his
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school in New Zealand and so it's no coincidence that he strived to be this
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fighter and in fact when he won the UFC title the next day day he was he was depressed and he went to therapy that's
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made me question whether like our wise can sometimes be trauma or insecurity
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driven as opposed to being intentional and I don't know so a why is fully
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formed by the time we're in our mid to late teens the youngest person I've done
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a y Discovery for was 16 and it worked the process worked um and what I've learned from
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just doing hundreds of over the years is that a why is always positive it's always striving for something so like
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we're not inspired against something we're not inspired to stop something we're inspired to build something or
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create something or Advance something um though it may have been born out of
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trauma there's usually a silver lining that gives us that cause especially trauma that happens in the middle of our
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Lives you know September 11th is often looked to as you know people found purpose you know We Are Who We Are like
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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
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opportunity life presents us is to make decisions that either Keeps Us in balance with who we really are or not
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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
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because we're making decisions that are inconsistent with that true cause with that why so you raise the case of um
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individual athletes who become Champions and then suffer depression fairly common story you hear this from
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Olympians you know Michael Phelps becomes the most medled you know uh Olympian of all time immediately suffers
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depression Andre Agassi becomes the most storied you know tennis player of all time immediately becomes depressed and
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what I've learned from talking to some of these um these particularly athletes
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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
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words would be a very selfish goal I want to be the best at X the best tennis
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player the best golfer the best whatever and you know the way Olympians put it which I get a kick out of is I want to win the Olympics like well no one wins
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the Olympics like you can be a winner in your sport you know but that's an aside
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but and and their entire lives from pretty young ages every decision they're
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making is to help them Advance this fin
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goal and all of their relationships are can you help me achieve my goal right
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and if you can no longer help me achieve my goal I don't need you anymore as a coach or even a
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friend and those huge sacrifices missing of birthdays missing of Christmases you
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know missing of major life uh events because I have to practice so I can
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achieve my goal and when they get into interviewed on the news you know or at the Olympics or whatever you know why do
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you do it and they will say well I'm doing it to inspire the little kids which is complete [ __ ] you know if you look at all of their uh vision
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boards from when they were younger of pictures of podiums and medals and money
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and Lamborghinis not a single little child on there of the people you're doing it for it's it's just a Lucky
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Strike extra I mean absolutely you do Inspire children but that's not the reason you did it you just got that you
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know like I said it's sort of it's a twofer and and then when they achieve or don't
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achieve this thing and then can no longer compete for it um they've set
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their entire path in order their relationships on this one these finite selfish goals and so when it's complete
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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
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purpose because they've been spent the past 20 years or so with one purpose which was this finite goal which now has
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run out and so the very purpose lesss and I see this in Broadway performance
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forers who set their whole life to be on the west end or be on Broadway you know every class every tap dancing class
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every singing class they make it they get there and then depression or at least Mala or
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senior executive same thing if I just or if I just make a million dollars you know if I just become a millionaire then
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I'll feel and uh and the problem with all of those things is as I said before they
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are selfish uh it is your goal for your your reasons which um is not fulfilling
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for any Social Animal for any human being you know our sense of joy and fulfillment and love and purpose comes
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from our ability to serve another human being have a child tell me how your life changes fall in love tell me how your
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life changes you know think about all the stupid things irrational things we've done for love we get on planes and
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travel around the RO just to say I love you you know we do ridiculous things and it all feels worth it and the sacrifices
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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
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they are not finite they are infinite and there's nothing wrong with Personal Achievement there's nothing wrong with
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setting goals but it has to be in the context of something even bigger in
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general team sports don't suffer this because you had to do it together you
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know it's usually individual athletes who suffer this more often uh and so there there is a there's one of the the
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athletes I would point to is a guy by the name of Curtis Martin Curtis is a Hall of Fame NFL footballer um and he
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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
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into he grew up in a really bad neighborhood in Philadelphia and basically kept him out of trouble it turns out he was really good at it and
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when he realized he was good at it he realized that by being good at something it will give him the power to actually
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give back later and he he made this realization especially when he went to college on scholarship and then made it
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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
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leaves this career he has a platform that would be bigger than the platform he has now and so he was driven and
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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
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of his rank not that he could uh be rich or or any of these things he did it so
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that he could build his platform so he could give back later so when he retired from the NFL he wasn't lost he wasn't searching
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he he knew exactly what the next step was because being in being an elite athlete to the highest level possible
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was only step one um and to see one's life as a Continuum rather than than a than an
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event um is much healthier on that point of seeing one's life as a Continuum by
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the way you completely we call it atting someone you described their situation but you completely added me you
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completely described my situation in terms of the place of mind I was in at 25 when I had that offer to BU my
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company it was about me it was about filling some void that I had in me from
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being like the only black kid in an allh school and thinking that I think success
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and accolades would fill that void in some ways but on that point of a Continuum as a as a way to live your
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life the other moment in my life where I which I really struggled in in terms of goal setting and motivation was when I
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was trying to get in shape and in like 2017 I said to myself I want to get a sixpack for summer that's the goal I set
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myself really what I was trying to find a way to stay fit forever but I set myself this goal of getting a sixpack in
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summer that was my thing and then every single year my motivation would only last for like four or five months and I
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couldn't crack how people are continually motivated to work out I've cracked it now but what was wrong about
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that cuz I've heard you speak about arbitrary goals before what is the the flaw of creating arbitrary goals in our
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lives and how do we create goals that are more based on that idea of a Continuum you know I I I'm not a huge
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fan of the the term self-improvement right um but I do like
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the idea of awareness self-awareness you know we all live with blind spots we all live with missing
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gaps and pieces of information which will by the way last for the rest of our lives and there are some people choose
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to live a life where living with those gaps is acceptable and they never fill them in and we would say that they
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remain stagnant and arguably either mentally or physically unhealthy or G
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gaining you know getting unhealthier as they get older you know for someone for
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anyone who who wants to be a better version of themselves a more aware
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version of themselves you you we I seek out
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information and that comes in all kinds of forms right it can be in a relationship um so for example I went
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and took a listening class actually I should pref preface with um I was dating
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someone and she accused me of being a bad listener and I was like you do know
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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
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then I took this listening class turns out I'm an absolutely brilliant listener
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with people who I'll never see again for the rest of my life but amongst my friends and family appalling appalling
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so I had this basic skill set that I never applied with the people closest to me
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and gave myself an out because quote unquote I knew how to listen um and so I realized I was a
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terrible listener this was a blind spot this was a gap and having somebody love me tell me that didn't work didn't
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believe them until you know this objective Outsider or at least just took this class and came to this realization
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that was brilliant that awareness of the blind spot and the awareness of the skills that I need to be a better
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brother son boyfriend friend you know I had to learn how to hold space for
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someone and then practice um that's awareness and I think our health is
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awareness unfortunately some people wait for the breakup to learn that they're bad listeners some people wait for the heart
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attack to realize they're eating poorly you know that's awareness you get awareness by getting a punch in the face
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and I think I think it's a responsibility for every human being should they want to have value in the
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lives of others to seek awareness in how they
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show up in the world and and how the world impacts them their mental health their physical health their ability to
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maintain relationships and nurse relationships and you hear me what I mean you hear me say this over again
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it's a sort of it's a repeating pattern which is for those who want to show up better in the lives of others which is I
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see being healthy as a service to others I see being a better listener being a service I see everything in terms of
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service to others there are benefits to you as well of course but I I think we've neglected for
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decades the the socialness of our of our animal and social media and cell phones
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and and the and the ubiquity of those technologies have complicated our ability to be human um there are others
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who comment on this as well brne Brown talks about this where we have a Young Generation that has mistaken
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vulnerability in broadcast right where you sit in your
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room by yourself put your phone on record and make a video of yourself
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crying because of the loss of a relationship and then posting that on Instagram or SnapChat or YouTube or Tik
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Tok or whatever your media of choices and the hashtag is just being vulnerable
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right and there's nothing vulnerable about that you by yourself broadcasting to the world live or video It Doesn't
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Matter do that exact same thing with the person you
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hurt that is way more difficult don't leave a voice memo saying hey I'm really
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sorry just taking accountability call them or go visit them and look them in the eye and say that exact same sentence
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that you just left a voice memo for that's vulnerability that's really hard
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and requires practice and we avoid it because it's difficult we avoid it because it's uncomfortable we choose
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broadcast not because it's better it's because it's easier and then mistake the two and so
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the reason to learn to be vulnerable is not for ourselves it's for US service to others and I talk about this all the time which we've confused these things
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and once again going back to what we were talking about before we've weirdly taken these very pro-social activities
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and made them selfish like go us uh my my biggest P I'll give you my
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biggest pet peeve and I've talked about this one before but it drives me nuts I was at this meet I was in this meeting
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once and there was a a woman next to me who was this big timey yoga instructor
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apparently and the entire meeting was a it was a big group of us she was on her phone under the under the desk under the
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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
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wanted to just you know stay in touch she was on social media I could see right and at one point the conversation
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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
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present of which I'm thinking you're an idiot you know and I started to realize
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we've confused things here which is we don't get to decide when we're present
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we get to practice being present but you actually are not present until someone else says you are
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you know 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
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I'm a great listener except I'm not right I don't get to self assign these
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accolades especially when they're social they can only be assigned by another and
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so for anyone who's ever practiced meditation there are absolutely benefits to us without a doubt and it is those
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are important mental and physical health benefits of meditation and mindfulness
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and we should practice those for sure but there's also that what I think is the primary reason some would consider
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secondary reason which is if you practice meditation for example you learn to focus on one thing your Mantra
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a sound whatever it is you learn to your breath you learn to it's you don't nobody you don't think of nothing you
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think of one thing you focus on one thing right and if something interrupts that thing you have a thought did I
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leave the washing machine on you know you label it a thought and you push
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it out of your head and you say I'll deal with it later and that's the whole the whole idea is total focus and the
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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
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through a hard time are you listening are you waiting for your turn to speak right the whole meditation practice that
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you've been doing is now valuable in this moment where you are focused entirely on what they're saying to you
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every distraction every Screech of a car outside everybody who's talking around
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you you don't hear any of it you only hear what they're saying to you are entirely focused on what they're saying to you and when you have your own
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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
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you say NOP 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
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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
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listening and those are all uh uh indications that congratulations you've been present for another and I think
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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
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gives our lives purpose is to do these things for another there's nothing wrong with doing
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things and enjoying the benefit of those things Yourself by all means but the sense of the deep feeling sense of
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purpose and meaning to one's life or to one's work only comes when those things
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are for another and in my view primarily for another where our benefit is
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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
00:21:10
sacrifice your spouse's love so that you can stay in love or do you sacrifice your comfort do you sacrifice as your
00:21:16
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
00:21:23
obvious well it's the same here it's the same analogy which is I choose to sacrifice my my happiness my joy my
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comfort my Lamborghini in this moment not forever but in this moment for you
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for you my employee for you my friend you know um I will delay so that you can
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have and that's where the joy and love of business relationships friendships come from you know there's a great irony
00:21:52
in it in all of this which is to sacrifice for another really is the most beautiful thing we can ever do I mean
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that's kind of what love is it's sacrificing for another um and all of these things
00:22:04
whether it's learning to be a better Communicator learning mindfulness and meditation being in shape if you can
00:22:11
translate those things in for another all of those things start to have a higher purpose in the case of Health
00:22:18
doing it for another you're saying that it would be so that I can be here longer for my family would be a much more
00:22:23
joyful if I had children for example sure as long as it's real m it can't be
00:22:29
generic right it can't you just can't you can't just put it out there just so it's fills the you know Mad Libs and you
00:22:35
fill the Gap yeah yeah you know it's got to you got to actually feel it that that actually is the purpose I'll give you one then so part I do think about this
00:22:42
and I thought about this last night when I was in the gym was in part I think I work out because I want to be healthy and in shape for my for my girlfriend
00:22:49
like I want to be I want our relationship to be good I want us to be able to be active together I want her to be attracted by me when I'm naked you
00:22:57
know like and I had a debate with my team as to like whether that's a noble reason to work out and should we have a
00:23:05
feel an obligation or whatever to be in shape for our our other half I think to be healthy for our other half for sure
00:23:11
but you think the aesthetic stuff is a bit I think it's fine I mean I think the aesthetic stuff is about confidence right which is I'm sure she'll love you
00:23:18
even if you're chubby you know I'm sure she'll love you even if you don't have a six-pack you know but if it makes you
00:23:24
feel confident then it's like people who have nose jobs you know like somebody says you can't have a nose job why are
00:23:30
you well if it makes them feel better about themselves then how can we argue with it like if they if they went from being really really insecure and hiding
00:23:37
their faces or bad teeth and they never wanted to smile to fixing their teeth and now they smile all the time like why
00:23:43
why should we tell them they count now of course there's a line getting addicted to plastic surgery is something different and there is a line but you
00:23:51
know getting your teeth done or getting a nose job to make yourself feel better is it's fine if it builds your confence
00:23:57
so if it builds your confidence and then and it's a and you're doing it in a healthy way you know then you know it's
00:24:04
like how can somebody argue that you shouldn't be exercising so it looks now again there is a line there are some
00:24:09
people who actually overdo it where if they stop exercising they gain a tiny bit of weight they actually spiral there
00:24:16
is a line where they're actually not building confidence they're actually building insecurity but some of these
00:24:21
things don't have to be big and lty they can be ridiculously small like so for example for me you know I
00:24:29
very good at um disappointing myself like I have no problem disappointing myself right like I'll wake up in the
00:24:35
morning two hours before my alarm and I'll say to myself you should work out
00:24:40
like you're up super early you've got a busy day and you just got an extra two hours you could like use 30 minutes of
00:24:46
that to work out get out of bed I'm like n I'll sit in bed for two hours and just like read the newspaper and play Wordle
00:24:53
you know and two hours will go by and I won't work out do I have any guilt none
00:25:00
I'm just like H you're an idiot Simon right now if I'm meeting someone at the gym at 7:30 because we're going to work
00:25:07
out I'll be there I won't let somebody down I'm okay letting myself down but I won't let somebody else down so for me
00:25:13
my purpose sometimes is very in the moment like I'm doing this for them it's like you know when I when I would run
00:25:19
you know one of the reasons I stayed in good running shape is because when I ran with my running buddy I never wanted to
00:25:25
ruin their run if they wanted to keep a slightly higher Pace I could keep but so it doesn't always have to be big and
00:25:30
lofty sometimes it can be in the moment when you talked about awareness there and the importance of trying to become
00:25:36
more aware about ourselves and one of the things that made you aware was that conversation with your partner yeah where they said you don't listen you're
00:25:42
a shitty listener yeah um self-awareness what I don't know if that's a real thing but self-awareness um seems to be the
00:25:49
foundation of grow personal growth right so becoming aware about something in our lives and people can read as I always
00:25:55
say people can read as many books as they like but if they're unable to read themselves will never really learn a thing for me and I I I wrote that a
00:26:01
couple of years ago and I had a guy in my office who read every single he was actually one of the people that always came in with your books right he read
00:26:07
every single book I've ever seen he knew every book but he never changed yeah and
00:26:13
and he and there was things within him that he wasn't self-aware about that I believe were the reason why he couldn't
00:26:19
evolve even though he was taking in so much information how does w go about what are the the the key ways we can go
00:26:24
about increasing our sense of self-awareness so that we can grow and evolve such a good question you know it's kind
00:26:31
of like people like that are a little bit like yo-yo dieters you know they they do every diet but they're not
00:26:36
healthy people I read every book but I'm not growing and you can't assess
00:26:43
yourself you know it's like can you I mean you know this from work right which is at some point somebody's going to
00:26:49
have to give you feedback at some point you have to give somebody else feedback like self assessment is a thing but it's
00:26:55
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
00:27:01
that butress with the assessments of others because we are blind very often
00:27:08
we're social animals we cannot do this thing called Career or life alone we're just not that smart we're not that
00:27:14
strong we're not that aware we're just not that good as social animals we actually need each other to watch our
00:27:19
backs and tell us what's working and what's not working and I think for somebody who goes through life and reads
00:27:24
those books all the books you know I guess good on them I guess but are they
00:27:29
asking for help are they asking for uh Insight from others as opposed to just reading it and agreeing with it and
00:27:35
thinking they're making the changes I know my own personal journey and I try I do think of myself as I I I work hard to
00:27:43
be self-aware and I work hard to self-evaluate but I I have seen in my
00:27:48
own life my ability to truly demonstrate real
00:27:54
awareness um and move further down the the journey and path called life as
00:28:01
opposed to staying stagnant came when I let others help me you know we we don't build trust by offering help we build
00:28:07
trust by asking for it because it's a vulnerable thing to ask for help will you help me is a very very vulnerable
00:28:14
statement can I help you not so much an act of service but the act of service
00:28:20
really comes from allowing somebody else to serve you which it becomes this whole weird
00:28:26
Twisted circular thing you know it's like I I mean I'll give you a silly
00:28:32
example people who are bad at taking compliments right you're so smart no no no no no no
00:28:41
right we downplay it because we're embarrassed by the compliment right but a compliment is a gift somebody's paying
00:28:47
you a gift now if somebody handed you a present you wouldn't push it back because it would be rude right you would
00:28:53
accept it and whether you like it or not or whether it makes you comfortable or not you accept it with gratit ude and then you go evaluate it later oh that's
00:29:01
an ugly sweater you know but you're still grateful for the thought and the gift and the compliment is the same and
00:29:06
I think all of these things the willingness to you know to deny someone else the joy of giving you the gift of
00:29:12
the compliment and to deny someone else the intensity and joy of being there for someone else again I think is selfish
00:29:19
never asking for help is selfish asking for help is a great Act of service because you allow someone else to have
00:29:25
the joy of sacrifice and it goes backwards and forwards it's not one-sided and this is where I think
00:29:30
great relationships work which is we take turns and sometimes it's really difficult when
00:29:37
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
00:29:44
Co um I have a couple of my friends they're sort of remarkable High
00:29:51
performing individuals both of them and one of them called me out of the
00:29:56
blue she went for for a long walk she says I'm doing really badly and I need to talk to you and I
00:30:04
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
00:30:11
have the energy for me but I know he'll want to be there for me which will make it worse for him we're both really struggling can do you have some time to
00:30:18
talk you know and I mean a the willingness to ask for help B the
00:30:26
willingness to understand that asking her husband for help would made it even more difficult
00:30:32
for him it was just a very sophisticated and beautiful moment and to this day we
00:30:37
became and 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
00:30:43
be and this is why we have friends like again we can't do this alone not only are we social animals we're tribal
00:30:50
animals you know it's more than a friend it takes a community um and I think one
00:30:56
of the you know we're always talking about what eating and we're talking about what we're you know what you know
00:31:01
what supplement we're taking or we're always talking about those kinds of things or what book we're reading but we
00:31:08
we don't do enough talking about how we are nursing our close personal relationships
00:31:14
how we were taking care of those closest to us and making sure that the tribe is
00:31:20
strong um the crew is taken care of you know um and I think there's a lot more
00:31:26
work that we can do in that arena is there practical things that you do with
00:31:32
colleagues Partners friends to create that culture of seeking feedback being
00:31:38
open being truly vulnerable you know some people say oh we'll have we'll sit down with our diary and we'll write
00:31:44
we'll do this exercise or you might have seen in organizations where they do like 360 feedback things is there is there
00:31:50
practical things we can do to create a culture of seeking out that feedback and creating a safe space well the simple
00:31:55
answer is of course um the there's no such thing as a single Silver Bullet
00:32:01
It's a combination of things it's like what's the one thing I can do to happy have a happy relationship well I I can't I can tell you a important thing but I
00:32:07
can't tell you the important thing so it's the same um and everybody's a little different you know and each
00:32:12
culture is a little different so there's there's not even a set list I can get but there's some things that people can choose from you know one thing is one of
00:32:19
the ways we create space is how we react right if someone gives you feedback and you deny it well that's a problem if
00:32:26
somebody gives you hard feedback and you thank them for it it's a very different environment it creates so I I I'll give
00:32:34
you two uh examples one a lesson the other one a practical example that someone can use so I had the opportunity
00:32:41
to visit the Army Rangers uh Ranger school in particular and I where they make they they make army rangers and one
00:32:48
of the troubles they had a bunch of years ago was they had these folks that they
00:32:54
called Spotlight Rangers which was they were really good at their job like they were brilliant at all the tasks that
00:33:01
were set to them strong their the teachers the instructors loved them they stood out
00:33:07
they were great they were motivated but as soon as the spotlight was turned off when the instructor wasn't there and
00:33:12
they were back at Barracks they were [ __ ] and the only person who the only people who knew were their were
00:33:17
their friends and colleagues because the spotlight was turned off and so the Army Rangers implemented a system of peer
00:33:25
review in order to identify Spotlight Rangers and in now by the way they started this
00:33:31
40 years ago which I find incredibly Advanced um but to advance through
00:33:36
Ranger school you need to pass three tests you need your instructor to say yep you're ready to go to the next level
00:33:42
you need to physically actually perform all the tasks required of you and you need to pass your peer review um and if
00:33:48
you fail any one of those three you don't make it to the next level interesting and so that becomes an
00:33:54
equally weighted component of advancement in the Army Rangers which is what kind of team player are you which I
00:34:00
love so we implemented a system of 360 review um which was sort of a bit of an
00:34:08
amalgamation of things we' taken from other groups and made our own where what
00:34:13
we what the way it works is um you take the group of people you have regular
00:34:19
interaction with and you
00:34:24
um fill out uh your top three
00:34:29
weaknesses or the places you believe you need to grow the most with a specific example for each so
00:34:36
top three specific weaknesses or or places you need to grow the most and then top three specific strengths or the
00:34:44
places you believe three examples of the places you believe you've grown the most they have to be specific not like Oh I'm
00:34:50
a much better timekeeper now no that you got to give some specific examples they're collated and distributed amongst
00:34:57
the team and then you come together as a group and you take turns reading them so
00:35:04
first you read your own weaknesses and then the group has the opportunity to add to that list and
00:35:12
here's the best part we give a little speech before the whole exercise starts that the people who are going to give you this feedback really don't want to
00:35:21
it's really uncomfortable for them it's going to be uh they they would just rather not do this exercise at all
00:35:28
but they're going to do it because they want to see you and help you grow and so what they're giving you is a gift and so
00:35:34
you have to receive it as a gift which means you say thank you you don't have to agree with it if you don't agree with
00:35:40
it say thank you then just dismiss it it's fine but if it has an emotional
00:35:46
impact if it makes you angry or frustrated it's probably
00:35:51
true right and we go around the room and somebody tell they every people can add to this list of these weaknesses in any
00:35:58
way that there's no format they can do it in any way they want and you sit there and you look them in the eye and you genuinely say thank you you're not
00:36:04
allowed to say a word except thank you then you do your strengths and you
00:36:09
read your strengths and anyone can add to the list and just as you discovered you have blind spots you didn't know you
00:36:14
have you discover that you have strengths that you didn't know you had that you're having a positive impact in the lives of others that you didn't know
00:36:19
you were and it's a magical experience there usually tears at some point because it's powerful and it's a safe
00:36:25
environment I wouldn't recommend an organiz start there I would recommend you build towards that because you're
00:36:31
going to put very senior people and very Junior people in the same room and they're going to have very blunt conversations with each other and it's
00:36:36
it's real right it's not a place to start but it is a place to get to I mean there are variations for it that one takes a lot of time you know we've we've
00:36:43
vary we varied is where everybody's responsible to do it and you can you have two people assigned and you can choose one or two people to join and you
00:36:50
just have a smaller a smaller group when you want to do it you know and it's just for you so the others don't do it in
00:36:57
that moment it's it's a little more efficient to do it that way um but there's no right or wrong way I really
00:37:02
love that idea of the promotion being contingent on not just the your manager
00:37:07
or you're the CEO believing that you are x y and Zed but getting peer reviewed by the colleagues around you because one of
00:37:13
the things I noticed in my company we had and when I left there was about 700 people but I would have I would hear
00:37:19
reports about a particular team member and the reports I would get back about their character and their conduct never
00:37:25
match the way they treated me M so they would always treat me of amazingly right of course right and then I'd hear that
00:37:32
they treated this person like this and they did this and I'd go really and they go yeah I really they they were always
00:37:38
so nice to me and obviously on that basis I would have promoted that individual and thought they were great so that's definitely something I'll
00:37:44
Implement that's called a tree of monkeys by the way it's called the a tree of monkeys which is um all the
00:37:50
people at the top looking down see only smiles but all the people at the bottom looking up see only a oh [ __ ] yeah that's makes
00:37:59
I never never had and again you there's you don't have to do you don't have to I mean there's again there's different cultures can accept different you know
00:38:06
there's no right or wrong here you know and some cultures may want to implement a peer review that gets included in in a
00:38:13
promotion package but it doesn't have to be that good leadership helps there as well which is every senior person knows
00:38:20
that they don't get the truth I mean even if your people are wonderful and fantastic people want to tell you the
00:38:26
right answer not because they're trying to Li to you but they want to please you like you you knew the more senior you got it was harder and harder to get the
00:38:31
truth and every senior leader knows that it's hard to get the truth every great senior leader also has
00:38:36
spies somebody that maybe you started you were friends with that people don't know you're friends with or you came up
00:38:42
through the ranks of the organization together but your career went a little further a little quicker you know that
00:38:47
you have these trusted relationships that you can just get a little inside scoop as to what's really going on um
00:38:52
also this is the hardest one is or at least it's a hard one learning to
00:38:58
replace uh judgment with curiosity so somebody comes to you and says that person is a problem and all of
00:39:05
a sudden we create a narrative based on the story that they tell us that they are a problem that person's stupid that person's lazy whatever it is now they're
00:39:11
labeled as lazy now we treat them as lazy now everything that they do or don't do it's because they're lazy right
00:39:18
um but as a good leader we want to we can take those reports we can take that
00:39:24
hearsay we can take those direct stories that people have and we can say thank you I appreciate
00:39:30
that I'll look into it I'm going to find out more and you go on a little journey to discover what's really happening it
00:39:37
absolutely may be that they're lazy that could 100% be it or maybe they're
00:39:42
distracted for a reason or maybe they're having trouble at home or maybe we've given them a job that they're ill qualified for or maybe they're having a
00:39:49
personality conflict with somebody that they work with like the list goes on and on and on and on and the good leader is
00:39:54
finding that out and by the way by I don't mean the senior person I mean any person in the
00:40:00
organization um to replace that judgment with curiosity and I think that's what creates those environments but the
00:40:06
reality is is with rank you do set the tone so for example um no lying that
00:40:13
seems like a pretty simple one inside a company we don't tell lies okay phone rings your assistant picks up uh they
00:40:22
put the person on hold and they call out to you uh David's on the phone phone and
00:40:28
you go tell them I'm not here you've just sanctioned a lie you've just
00:40:33
sanctioned a lie right and that little lie then now that person who was told to
00:40:40
lie approvingly now they can tell a lie right because came from the boss and all
00:40:45
of a sudden you find out you have an organization that tells lies all over the place and some of those lies grow it
00:40:51
happened to me once where um I had a very very senior phone call with the top
00:40:56
leaders of a really big organization like and I forgot I just
00:41:02
didn't show up on the call I just I have no no excuse I just I forgot to check my calendar and I
00:41:09
forgot and my assistant at the time of course wanted to protect my
00:41:16
reputation and she wrote to them and said terribly sorry Simon had another meeting that ran
00:41:22
long and I took her aside and it was the hardest feedback I had to give because she did it with such good intention I
00:41:28
said I am so grateful I'm so grateful that you're protecting me and you're protecting my reputation and I want you to do that but
00:41:35
you have to do that without lying we cannot lie you can say I'm sorry he's late I'm sorry he missed the
00:41:42
call but you cannot say it's because he was in another meeting because that's not true and so you it's this you know I
00:41:51
mean I'll challenge you you try this right let's look at the time right now right it's it's noon okay it's noon on a
00:41:57
I don't even know what dat it is Monday right you and your entire crew here's the challenge for all of you okay you
00:42:03
may not tell a single lie for the next 48 hours I mean nothing and you'll be
00:42:10
amazed how difficult it is you'll be amazed how many Little White Lies We Tell like the waiter comes over and 5
00:42:18
minutes before you're saying oh this food is so salty and the waiter comes and goes how is everything you go it's fine
00:42:25
everything's fine yeah thank you it's fine that is a lie right now you don't have to be mean
00:42:31
there's nothing that says truth has to be brutal it just has to be true try for the next 48 hours and see
00:42:38
how hard it is not to tell a single lie everyone's going to be walking around asking each other what they think of
00:42:43
each other now Simon said you got to be honest right but there's ways of doing it right like so um do these genes make
00:42:51
me look fat I like the other genes much better they're way more flattering
00:42:58
right you don't have to hurt people also timing right so a true story so I went
00:43:05
to see a friend's play and uh I I could not wait for this thing to
00:43:12
end it was so bad and I went out you know to say hi to her after the
00:43:19
performance and she came out she was still in costume and makeup and she knows I'm an honest
00:43:25
broker she cares about what I she knows I'll always tell her the truth in these kinds of things and she says to me what
00:43:32
did you think now now is not the time in place she's pumped up full of
00:43:38
adrenaline and now is not the time for me to give her a critical evaluation of of this gut aul performance and so I
00:43:46
sidestepped the question but said something true I said ah it was such a treat to be here to see you do your
00:43:52
thing you know I've been wanting to see you on the stage forever and it was so much fun to see you on the stage all
00:44:00
of that was true the next day when the adrenaline had come down and I called her up and
00:44:06
said can I tell you what I thought about the play she goes yeah of course and I told her critically piece by piece what
00:44:13
I thought about it and how bad it was we had a perfectly rational conversation about it didn't hurt her feelings the
00:44:18
day before it would have really hurt her feelings so not everything has to be we mistake being honest with being honest now now I can't lie and I have to answer
00:44:26
the question but it can answer it tomorrow when the conditions are better for that message to be received what is so Insidious or
00:44:33
what is so harmful what is the long-term negative impact of creating that culture of lying within teams and within
00:44:40
ourselves well there's a there's this there's this a psychological U um phenomenon I guess called ethical
00:44:48
fading uh which can grip an organization's culture where people
00:44:54
within that culture become capable of making highly High highly unethical decisions believing they were well
00:44:59
within their own ethical Frameworks right so extreme
00:45:05
examples are things like pharmaceutical companies who have a patent on an
00:45:10
essential drug and in order to meet or beat some Financial projection they
00:45:15
raise the price of that essential drug 100% 500% 1,000%
00:45:21
1500% totally legal there's nothing illegal about that really unethical
00:45:26
right and in organizations that suffer ethical fading it almost always if not always
00:45:34
starts from the top it's usually a leadership problem it comes from excessive amounts of pressure to hit
00:45:40
certain short-term goals to the point where doing it ethically becomes more and more difficult and so what creates
00:45:47
ethical fading is a series of things one of those things is um we we we rationalize right we look for ways to
00:45:54
distance ourselves from the impact of our decisions we say things like it's
00:45:59
what you got to do to get ahead it's what my bus wants um everyone's doing it
00:46:05
it's the system I don't have a choice right um and there are ways we can
00:46:10
disassociate our responsibility right so rationalizing is a big part of it another part is the old slippery slope
00:46:17
you did it once you did it a little bit it worked we raised the price 10% nobody even noticed great do it again do do 20%
00:46:23
this time try 100% and it just keeps going and going and going going before you have full-blown ethical fading and
00:46:30
um some of the things are excessive use of euphemisms again we're using language to disassociate ourselves in the impact
00:46:35
of our decisions so for example you know um we in the United States would never
00:46:41
torture but enhanced interrogation that sounds very appealing right or companies
00:46:47
would never spy on their customers but data mining yeah no we're really into that right um we're just using different
00:46:54
language to to mask the insidiousness of our real decisions like everybody talks about managing externalities but we
00:47:00
don't talk about the damage we're doing to the people and cultures environments of the places where our offices and factories are located why don't you have
00:47:06
that conversation and so when you have enough of those things you ethical
00:47:12
fading shows up where you now have real issues and in the extreme you have
00:47:17
massive scandals sometimes it leads to illegal activity but usually it's just unethical scandals and when those things
00:47:23
happen management is dragged out and they talk to the newspaper to the law and they always say the same thing which is we we broke no laws everything we do
00:47:29
is legal no we don't have an issue with the law we have an issue with your ethics um but when you don't have when
00:47:36
it's not full-blown it just becomes an incredibly uncomfortable and a horrible place to work that increases stress to
00:47:41
the point where you'll do damage to your own health and you'll do damage to the way you treat your family because when you're into that kind of stress to
00:47:47
violate your own ethics at work um you're going to come home you're going to take it out on your your spouse and
00:47:53
your kids you're going to kick the dog um you're not going to be motivated to do much except sitting on sit on the
00:47:59
couch and watch TV you know so it has it has some pretty Insidious uh impact in
00:48:05
the lives of human beings I was thinking of it as well in terms of romantic relationships one little white lie
00:48:12
becomes another little white lie and then a couple of you know a year passes and you're so unaligned and so far from
00:48:19
your truth that you're resentful that you're having to keep up with this set of Lies I mean we I've talked about it
00:48:25
with a guest on this podcast before one one of mistakes I made in my relationship at the start was I would say yes to things that I didn't like
00:48:31
doing yeah so I created this culture and this also this like expectation when my my partner thought I loved doing X
00:48:39
activity at 6:00 a.m. in the morning CU I'd always said yes and I'd always pretended to like it now I have to live
00:48:45
out that life of something I do not enjoy doing because I lied at the start and the journey back is not always so
00:48:50
easy when you've I I've made the same mistake on the other side which is after
00:48:56
I broke up with someone when we maintained a friendship and I started dating somebody
00:49:02
or at least started dating but I didn't want to hurt the feelings of this person I still care about that we broke up you
00:49:08
know a couple months before um and so if I would avoid the conversation but if she said are you
00:49:14
dating anybody I'd say no not really and it's not because I wanted to lie it's because I don't want to hurt her like
00:49:20
the intention of course is positive but what I learned later is all of those little lies meant that sh she was
00:49:27
holding out hope that wasn't there and by the way I'm it's been done to me as well I'm holding out hope that's not
00:49:32
there because someone didn't want to hurt my feelings and I would rather just have the uncomfortable conversation are you dating somebody you
00:49:39
are okay well that hurts but I can heal I can move on and you know
00:49:46
again this Young Generation because of all the reasons we've talked about and
00:49:52
more seems to exhibit the traits of being very conflict
00:49:58
avoidant very uncomfortable with uncomfortable um that has
00:50:05
some impact that are sometimes funny quote unquote but
00:50:12
always tend to make somebody feel more lonely so for example and I've seen this
00:50:17
happen I've heard about these stories so many times a a young employee who may
00:50:24
feel they're in line for a raise but it's so uncomfortable to go to their boss and ask for a
00:50:31
raise that they just quit that they would rather quit than have an uncomfortable conversation and then
00:50:38
sometimes it is followed by a an angry email that says I'm undervalued you
00:50:43
don't appreciate me you underpay me you know and and I've I've heard it happen
00:50:49
so many times where the leadership is like what what we would have happily
00:50:55
like I'm we we were either planning on giving you a raise we'd happy to give you a raise you know and it's really
00:51:01
uncomfortable to walk in your boss's office and be like hey I'm working really hard can I a raise please now the time you do get to quit is when you've
00:51:07
had this conversation four five six times and you've seen nothing and had no feedback and had no impact then
00:51:13
absolutely you quit and absolutely you say you undervalue me you under appreciate we've under underappreciate
00:51:18
me we've had this conversation five or six times then it's their fault because they had all the
00:51:25
information but again it's it's really funny how many young kids would they they would rather quit than have a
00:51:30
difficult conversation or they'd rather break up than have a difficult conversation or Worse they'd rather go
00:51:35
someone than break up with them because it's really uncomfortable to have a fight and a breakup and call
00:51:42
each other names it's much easier to just turn off all the social media un unfollow
00:51:48
everywhere I know we've been dating for six months but I'm just going to now ignore every text ignore all your calls
00:51:55
and think about it from the we talk about service think about the service or disservice we do to the other person for
00:52:01
their their point of view it's like you got an a car accident it's like you were just killed it's like
00:52:07
you just disappeared off the planet that is trauma because you're uncomfortable to
00:52:12
have an uncomfortable conversation you would do that to so another person so service goes both
00:52:17
ways which is I will make myself uncomfortable and have a difficult
00:52:22
conversation even if I bumble it and screw it up and it ends up being a screaming match because that is a better option than
00:52:29
traumatizing a person where they have to believe that I've first of all that I've died because they can't get a hold of me
00:52:34
in the panic and then when they realize I'm alive because they see me on Instagram that now I've destroyed their
00:52:43
self-confidence how dare somebody do that to another human being because you're just a little uncomfortable of having an uncomfortable conversation
00:52:49
where we can help is we can teach people how to have uncomfortable conversations that is a skill
00:52:54
set we don't teach leaders how to have uncomfortable conversations we don't teach students how to have uncomfortable
00:53:00
conversations we don't teach you know we can teach these things all over the place and I think it's I think it's a
00:53:06
big gaping hole in curriculum we teach you know maths and we teach English but we don't teach social interaction we
00:53:13
don't teach listening we don't we don't teach how to have uncomfortable conversations we don't teach how to give and receive feedback you know now you
00:53:21
tell me which is going to be more valuable for the rest of your life how to have a difficult conversation or trigonometry
00:53:27
yeah and shouldn't we be you know isn't this shouldn't we be preparing people for
00:53:34
life I had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast as the seasons have begun to change so has my
00:53:40
diet and um right now I'm just going to be completely honest with you I'm starting to think a lot about slimming
00:53:46
down a little bit because over the last couple of probably the last four or five months my diet has been pretty bad um
00:53:52
and it started to show a little bit really over the last two months I go to the gym about 18 % of the time so I track it with 10 of my friends in a
00:53:59
WhatsApp group in this tracker online that we all use together we call it Fitness blockchain and I'm currently at
00:54:06
81% um so 81% of the days I've done a workout in the last 150 days right so
00:54:12
I'm going to the gym about six times a week that's been a little bit impacted by the DI live tour but I'm trying to
00:54:18
stick to it and so one of the things I'm doing now to reduce my calorie intake and trying to get back to being
00:54:24
nutritionally complete in all I eat is I'm having the hule protein shake thank
00:54:29
you hu for making a product that I actually like The Salted Caramel is my favorite I've got the banana one here which is the one my girlfriend likes but
00:54:35
for me salted caramel is the one on that point of that new generation in the
00:54:41
workplace and how they're they're exhibiting traits of being a little bit more cowardly in terms of having those
00:54:48
difficult conversations you made a video about Millennials in the workplace that did probably hundreds of millions of views I remember seeing on Facebook
00:54:55
maybe 5 years ago and it just I think it had 50 million views on that one video but across YouTube it's got tens of millions of
00:55:01
views on many many different videos um but I'm thinking now about that new generation that you've described that
00:55:06
younger generation that genz generation that are emerging into the like postco
00:55:11
world what is the workplace for them what how do I as a leader make sure that if I'm hiring jenzy and I've got a
00:55:17
couple even in this room that work in my company what have we got to know about them and do to make sure that they
00:55:23
Thrive stay motivated and achieve their goals this is my own
00:55:29
bias I don't like the conversation of strengths and
00:55:35
weaknesses um you know it's the famous question you know in an interview what's your biggest weakness well I'm a
00:55:40
perfectionist you know uh I don't like the conversations of strengths and
00:55:45
weaknesses because um strengths often have liability I'm really confident okay in
00:55:52
the wrong context you're arrogant right but weaknesses also have Silver Linings
00:55:58
so for me I'm chronically disorganized I'm terrible right every system app I've
00:56:04
works for like a week and then I'm back to being disorganized is that a good thing or a bad thing now for years I used to beat
00:56:09
myself up for it and say it's a bad thing it's it's a terrible weakness but the reality is it's context so I was at
00:56:14
this as a young entrepreneur I was at this networking event and I met this guy who's like really impressed with what I
00:56:20
had to say with my pitch and he's like Simon we have to do work together here's my business card call me let's do this
00:56:25
and I lost the business card basically as soon as he gave it to me so anybody who was organized would be sending a
00:56:31
text from the taxi or at least sending an email the next day not Yahoo over here I lost the business card there was
00:56:36
no way for me to find out what this important piece of business would have led to because I lost the card two weeks
00:56:42
later I found the business card at the bottom of a briefcase so I emailed him and said hey remember we met two weeks
00:56:47
ago you know I'd love to reconnect and see if we can work together still he wanted to work with me more because he thought I was
00:56:53
busy so strength or weakness the answer is it depends now in general yes it is a
00:56:58
weakness it's a liability and it causes me great stress but not always is the point and so yes it's important for us
00:57:05
to understand our characteristics that we exhibit of which some of them in the in certain context
00:57:10
are huge strength and some of the the exact same characteristics in the rung context are huge weaknesses right so
00:57:16
it's very it's we have to be very careful when we label people or Generations as being strong or weak
00:57:21
because the answer is it depends okay so that's the preface so
00:57:27
when we talk about this Young Generation the the genz generation they
00:57:33
exhibit many of the same character of six is the previous generation but they're quite different in the sense that they're very
00:57:39
activist right so for example in the 1950s and 60s people hated their jobs
00:57:44
back then too they just went to work every day and just suffered in Silence You Know by the time you get to the '
00:57:50
80s and 90s people hated their jobs but then they'd at least start talking around about it around the office saying you know this this job kind of sucks a
00:57:56
little bit you know and then by the time you get sort of the 2000s people start speaking up to their bosses saying I
00:58:03
think we should make it better to work here you know and now you're in this young generation and they're just like
00:58:09
they're like standing up and quitting and like and I love it right and and and they organize they're much more you know
00:58:16
the previous generation would like hashtag tweet my discontent as I'm sitting in my Uber on my way to brunch
00:58:22
you know but this young generation gets out and organizes and comes together plus or minus it depends sometimes it's
00:58:29
a huge strength the fact that they have that kind of energy but sometimes as we've talked about as well they also have the energy to quit instead of
00:58:35
having an uncomfortable conversation so strength or weakness it depends and so I think the way we have to approach all of
00:58:40
these things is with empathy which is instead of uh uh deciding if it's a strength or weakness to try and
00:58:46
understand where it comes from because I can say this generation is irresponsible and will quit before they ask for a
00:58:53
raise or I can say why is it that they're quitting before they get a when they just need a raise
00:59:01
what's Miss what's what's what happened between a and b in that thought in those two actions you know and I'm like oh
00:59:06
they just missed the skill set oh we can totally figure that one out that one's an easy fix so I'm not labeling a whole person or a whole generation I'm rather
00:59:13
recognizing that there's gaps of uh skills which we all have so when you ask
00:59:18
me about any of the generations and they all have strengths and they all have liabilities and depending on the time
00:59:25
frame and the context sometime sometimes those strengths also become old-fashioned no longer necessary you
00:59:31
know they can still cause frustration they can still cause confusion you know we're still looking through them at our
00:59:37
through our own prisms of our own generation I've definitely caught myself doing it you know I do do it my goodness
00:59:42
we never did that when we were kids you know when I was their age I'm actually saying that
00:59:48
now but um I think the the the trial the the the the test is the
00:59:56
practice of empathy which is another skill that we can teach that's missing how is this the the co experiment on the
01:00:03
workforce and the workplace so how like Business Leaders or business owners need to adjust in order to make sure we
01:00:11
don't lose people and become an uncompelling unattractive place to work
01:00:18
in this postco era and also on the point you talked about earlier about the importance of like we're social animals
01:00:23
and we need that social connection and we're being kind of we're optimizing out of our Lives it feels to me like this
01:00:28
remote working thing has has exacerbated the issue because we're you know for for
01:00:34
young people you know I think that the office is one of the few institutions we have left where we are in person we no
01:00:40
longer get dating we do that on apps food we don't go to restaurants anymore we just order Uber Eats and our work
01:00:46
they're telling us is going to be done from Zoom I'm like what do we have left yeah lonely we going going to be lonely
01:00:52
and it's not a coincidence that we see Rising rates of depression anxiety suicide you know especially in younger Generations so you know it's not causal
01:01:00
but it's there's definitely a correlation you know it reminds me of when um and I'm old enough for this some
01:01:06
of your listeners are not but I remember when the internet showed up and e-commerce
01:01:14
started and I remember some of the people who are really into the tech running around thinking this is the
01:01:19
death of bricks and mortars there will never be stores again and now Amazon opens stores and
01:01:25
Rent the Runway open open stores and turns out it's the extremes are not great places you know it's not the death
01:01:32
it's live alongside they become different animals they become different reasons we go to shops not to get the
01:01:37
best deal you go to you go to you go to websites to get the best deal you go to shops because it's fun you go to shops
01:01:44
to try stuff on you go to shops because it's an activity because we our hunter gatherer instincts we like foraging and
01:01:51
looking for things it's entertainment we enjoy the service aspect you know it's with our friends
01:01:58
sometimes it's not about the shops at all it's just a a place something to do with our friends play plays a different
01:02:03
role and the smart retailers know that and so when we talk about work it's
01:02:08
the same it's the death of the corporate headquarters it's the death of the office I'm like H is it though you know
01:02:16
the reality is this's going to be somewhere in the middle and I think one thing with all the predictions about
01:02:21
what the future of work looks like I think one thing we can be absolutely sure of is there'll be more flexibility where you know where it used to be hey
01:02:28
boss can I take off next Friday can I work from home next Friday I have to stay home for whatever right becomes
01:02:37
emailing in the morning saying I'm working from home today and everybody's just fine with it you know introverts
01:02:43
liking work working from home extroverts like working at the office but at the same time sometimes extroverts should stay home because they can get more work
01:02:50
done and sometimes introverts need to come to the office because they need to connect and and and we want you to be a part of the culture and and so I don't
01:02:57
think you know making any predictions about what it will look like I think is a little foolish at this time we know
01:03:02
it'll be some sort of amalgamation we know it'll be more flexible and probably every office will be slightly different
01:03:09
and it'll fit whatever their culture is and I think the office environment will become one of the selling selling things
01:03:16
which is if somebody really hates this office environment they'll find another company where they like the office environment but I think what's really
01:03:22
interesting about the great resignation what's being talked about less and the great resignation is sort of the
01:03:28
reasons for it some people talk about the government checks that we've gotten that runs out so that's not the main
01:03:33
reason for it people talk about uh how people are quitting to follow their dreams you know I've always wanted to be
01:03:38
an actor or a writer great and that is definitely a percentage and I and I love
01:03:44
that but that's not those numbers aren't big enough I think what I think is more
01:03:51
interesting is that the great resignation is an indictment under Decades of substandard corporate culture
01:03:58
and poor leadership where and because it's a big deal that we're seeing people especially
01:04:04
at at um Frontline level jobs which um
01:04:09
where leadership used to say of them they should just be happy to have a job right um that that those people are
01:04:16
quitting without new jobs necessarily is a big deal um and they're definitely not all
01:04:22
just following their dreams I think it is because in the past you know when you ask those people how's
01:04:27
work and they'd be like it's fine is it good no it's it's fine it's a job it's
01:04:34
fine well why don't you quit because the unknown was way scarier than fine and so
01:04:40
they may do with fine and Leadership took advantage a lot of corporate managers took advantage of the fact that they could get away with fine we could
01:04:48
do the minimum because they're not going to leave they they're lucky to have a job and what are they going to go out there and the the great unknown fine is
01:04:56
fine and then covid happened and a lot of people were laid off a lot of people
01:05:02
lost their jobs a lot of people were furloughed some people kept their jobs but just lived in
01:05:07
fear and we all kind of made it out okay we ate we had food you know um most
01:05:16
people made it okay uh even if it was difficult they made it through and so all of a sudden
01:05:22
the great unknown a lot less scary and so when you're offering me fine I
01:05:28
choose unknown that's a better option in fact not only do I choose unknown I'm going to wait until you fix fine and I
01:05:36
don't think enough companies are recognizing that the great resignation is an indictment that the great
01:05:42
resignation is a a wag of the finger that you have been getting away with substandard culture and poor leadership
01:05:49
for too long and you better fix your stuff and I think the companies that will have the huge advantages is not not
01:05:55
the comp the companies that get the balance of iners or or or or uh or online work right I don't think that's
01:06:02
what makes it I think the companies that get the huge Advantage moving forwards are the ones that teach leadership to
01:06:08
their leaders that teach these human skills that we've been talking about that create a corporate environment and
01:06:14
a and a corporate culture that I want to go to every day and I actually form good strong bonds with my new tribe with the
01:06:20
people I go to work with and I'm willing to sacrifice and not get everything exactly how I want it but because I'd
01:06:25
rather be here and serve these wonderful group of people those are the companies that will have the huge advantage of the next decades or two one of the things
01:06:32
that I saw in that postco period was in my company in particular was are one of the things that I believe and from our
01:06:40
our research at the time I'm no longer with this company so I can kind of talk about it um with a bit more honesty in
01:06:47
our in our questionnaires we would see that a lot of the reason why people love to come and work there was because of
01:06:52
the the company culture right we had done we had gone to extreme lengths we had like five people that were just in
01:06:57
charge of Happiness called the happiness team we paid for everyone's mental health therapy it was a very it was the
01:07:03
it was in terms of flexibility what the world is like now where you can decide for yourself when you work and then when
01:07:08
covid came around we were like known for that in the UK like the BBC denner P say this the best place to work when Co came
01:07:14
around it smashed our USP because it and this is why I almost viewed it as a leveler because now everyone was working
01:07:21
from their laptop at home in their box of shorts so now what I think I I saw was our employees were going to some
01:07:28
degree I can work at home in my box of shorts for this company or I can work home in my box of shorts for this
01:07:34
company where they'll pay me more double yeah and and that shift was and it was terrifying for us because that's when we
01:07:40
started to see people leaving because they would go oh well this company will give me 30% more and I'm still going to
01:07:45
be doing my to-do list at home on my own so why don't I move now is there truth to that in your view yeah of course
01:07:51
because you misook um trappings for culture right right now no those things
01:07:56
are good let's not diminish the value of those things but this this is a beautiful full circle we're going in
01:08:02
from the very beginning of our conversation which is to what end to what end like what are we doing this in
01:08:07
service to what's the bigger thing that was missing and that was missing 100%
01:08:13
And that's that's that's where cultures become magic they're
01:08:18
fun like you know the number of companies you and I have both visited that have you know flat screens everywhere amazing design free lunch sh
01:08:26
you know we had a slide yeah yeah you have a slide like cool you know now is
01:08:31
somebody going to turn down a better paying job to keep that no you know but if you give them opportunity to
01:08:37
contribute to something bigger themselves would they turn down a better paying job now yes right and so I think
01:08:45
and it's probably driven by the whole.com tech culture um but it's it's it's you know
01:08:51
because tech companies largely are that sort of ridiculous bright color slides and everything office you know which is
01:08:56
fun don't get me wrong it's fun um but that that's not that's not cause that's
01:09:03
not purpose uh and great cultures are are are organized to advance something
01:09:09
bigger than themselves they're not just fun places to work do you know the thing I think we did wrong is I think we asked
01:09:14
people what they wanted yeah so they said things like a bar yeah a basketball
01:09:19
hoop whereas as you've as you're clearly alluding to here you can't ask people for culture like in that regard you
01:09:26
can't ask people for to all name the the collective cause because they'll all say
01:09:31
different things correct you have to you have to offer them a cause to join and that's one of the reasons they join the companies because they believe in the
01:09:36
cause not just because it's a a job I want to do um you know Henry Ford famously said if I asked people what
01:09:42
they wanted they would have set a faster horse you know this is where folks like Steve Jobs who's given too much credit
01:09:50
for being able to predict what people want is just totally not true it's he had a cause and he simply made products
01:09:57
that brought that cause to life which is to give people the power to stand up to
01:10:02
big brother that's it and we developed technology to empower
01:10:07
individuals that's it you know and so those who came to work there they
01:10:13
recognized that they were a part of a revolution the computer Revolution they constantly talked about it as the Revolution and they invented iTunes
01:10:19
which more than the iPod revolutionized the music industry turned it from an album culture to a song culture
01:10:25
let us make music portable you know um and that was the music they refer to as
01:10:31
the Music Revolution um and and you carried a banner you know
01:10:38
and you sacrificed for it was it a great place to work it was a hard place to work but it was worth it and that's the
01:10:45
question are the sacrifices worth it and sometimes we we hide the pain or the
01:10:52
difficulties or the strains or the stresses with all the silly fun stuff which is a salve let's be honest I mean
01:10:59
it does work to some degree but not all stress is bad you know you know I I I
01:11:06
joke you know often you know when we work hard for something we love it's
01:11:12
called passion we work hard for something we don't love it's called stress now in both cases you're working
01:11:17
hard you know what's the differ what's the difference between you know doing something you love and you work late
01:11:23
hours and you sacrifice your relationships and you sacrifice your family but you look at and say uh it was hard but it was worth it you know versus
01:11:31
losing all those things and all you do is get a Lamborghini at the end you know it's like was it worth it I'm like H not so sure I do that again you
01:11:39
know um and so I think that's what that's what purpose and cause provide us is they give us a reason for the
01:11:44
sacrifice that's what love gives us it gives us the reason for the sacrifice that's what children do they give us the reason for the sacrifice your life will
01:11:50
profoundly change when you have a child is it worth it yes is it easy no every
01:11:56
person I've ever talked to who has children say it's the most difficult thing they've ever done and if you ask
01:12:02
them if it's worth it they all say yes that doesn't go together you
01:12:07
know when I think about even this podcast and setting purposeful goals for
01:12:13
what we're doing here we definitely fell in the Trap of being like I think a lot of people do you get consumed in the charts oh my God we're number one right
01:12:20
for now for now yeah and then you scratch your head and go well then what next what's say What's a more worthy
01:12:26
more purposeful goal for us to have as a team when we're building something like this podcast because it's so easy to get
01:12:32
you know caught up in we want be number one in the charts and true and that does drive you to some extent it seems to be
01:12:37
a a reason whether it's a an vapid one or whatever but what is a better more
01:12:44
worthy purposeful goal to set okay so let's take a step back uhoh going to
01:12:49
interrogate me no what was the reason you did episode one um
01:12:55
plentiful going to give you all of them I'm very honest as well thought podcasting as a medium would be a big
01:13:01
opportunity I thought that was would be a really effective medium of communication when that's growing opportunity for what to grow my personal
01:13:08
brand okay I'm going to give you all of the reasons even the selfish ones okay number two I find it a thrill and deeply
01:13:17
compelling and liberating for others to talk about things and be honest in a way that most people aren't usually honest
01:13:22
so in the first episode I talk about things like masturbation and mental health problems as a CEO
01:13:28
difficulties with my family all of those things I find it liberating for myself but I know for others that listened to
01:13:33
it when especially when we got the um started to get the feedback it was equally liberating for them and then when you so episode one is a little
01:13:40
episode one was more of an experiment but as you episode yeah episode two or whatever then it was the feedback so I was doing a lot of other things that
01:13:45
were doing bigger views my Facebook videos would get 10 million each 10 million views each but the feedback I
01:13:51
was getting from the thousand people that were listening to this was deep it was profound and it was intense and they
01:13:57
said things like they said things like I can relate to that um that's really
01:14:02
helped me solve this problem I've had you've made me a big one we get is you've made me feel like I'm not alone MH and then going if I go to the last
01:14:10
like you know if I go to more recent times I quit when I left my job and I was now no longer needed to do anything
01:14:16
for money anymore in my life when I took stock of because there was about a sixth month or one year Gap in this podcast
01:14:22
which is when I was leaving my job and I took stock of life and thought about the things I want to do for the rest of my life and this was one of the things that
01:14:28
seemed to touch all bases it was enjoyable for myself I get to sit and learn from people like yourself it feels
01:14:34
like as you said it's like a service to others a really profound one probably the best most the greatest service like I feel like I can do to the external
01:14:40
world and it's it's money generating but to be honest if it makes a profit I just spend it on the podcast so uh yeah and
01:14:49
that's where that's kind of my my thesis so okay so let's back up a second I'm
01:14:54
just taking on your your own words I'm not adding anything here would you rather do this to be number one to grow
01:15:00
your own brand or would you rather grow this would you rather do this to tell the truth so it helps others tell the
01:15:07
truth to themselves and to others number two obviously yeah and so
01:15:14
your podcast absolutely has purpose and so when you start recognizing that we do
01:15:20
this we do this to tell the truth so that others can be honest with themselves and
01:15:25
others in a way that they struggle to find anywhere
01:15:31
else and if we're number one for a period of time amazing but if we're
01:15:36
number two we'll still do it and with number four we'll still do it if we're another 10 we'll still do it because there's a reason to do this that's
01:15:43
bigger now if the numbers are steadily declining and no one's listening then maybe we're doing
01:15:50
something wrong to spread our message maybe we've gone off base maybe we're maybe we're not telling the truth like we used to we need to reevaluate if
01:15:56
we're still fulfilling our purpose or maybe the manner or medium that we're using is no longer relevant so you know
01:16:02
because things change in time too so that's why the metrics do matter but the
01:16:08
absolute of the metrics don't matter the trend of the metrics matter um and so you do have purpose for
01:16:15
this and that means you have to practice that kind of Truth telling with your team who
01:16:21
work on this podcast because you have to live when the microphone is off the same way you live when the microphone is on
01:16:29
and that starts to have a profound impact on you and your team so if that becomes the purpose rather than being
01:16:34
number one maybe it gives people a reason to stick around here
01:16:40
because they believe in it it's benefited them is there a role for those arbitrary goals is that do are they
01:16:47
useful to say we want to be number one in the United States is that a useful goal to set ourselves um alongside the
01:16:55
sense of purpose can they coexist they can coexist as long as you're as long as you recognize the reason right because
01:17:02
if you become too obsessed with the goal at the sacrifice of the cause like there is a hierarchy the cause comes first
01:17:09
because the goal comes first you can look I know authors who and I'm sure you
01:17:14
know I'm sure there's ways to do it in podcast as well but like I know authors who are number one Amazon bestsellers
01:17:20
well that's because you can game the you can game the algorithm you just have all your friends buy a book on the same hour because it's calculated hourly and
01:17:26
congratulations you can be a number one Amazon bestseller with the worst book in the world it exists you can do it I I've
01:17:32
seen it there are companies that you can buy a New York Times bestseller like
01:17:39
they know how to game The New York Times algorithm and they buy books across the country basically you buy the books and
01:17:45
they buy them on your behalf so and if and I've had an opportunity to look at
01:17:50
the Publishers like look at the Publishers computers where you can see any book we can track any book book
01:17:55
sales and they've showed me they showed me how the trend works that you can tell who gain the system and there are some very famous authors that I will not
01:18:02
mention on this podcast who I know for a fact because I looked at the the that
01:18:08
they brag about how they're New York Times bestsellers well it's because they paid for it they bought all those books themselves right you can game all these
01:18:15
systems and if you're too obsessed with the number because you think the number is what gives you credibility then it
01:18:21
goes back to ethical fading again then the pressure becomes overwhelming and you start doing things that have nothing
01:18:27
to do with the podcast or the cause and only have to do with advancing the number so you can go around telling people you got the number right great
01:18:34
good for you you know and you know I don't it's not how I choose to build my
01:18:40
business or live my life you know but I think what's more fun is to be surprised
01:18:47
which is is it okay to be driven to be number one as long as you're doing it second and the p and the and the the
01:18:52
cause comes first sure if that's your thing um but just be prepared to answer what
01:18:58
what next you know because you you can't be number one forever that's I love it when companies say I'm number one or I've got the number one podcast and you
01:19:04
heard I always say for now like for now like that stuff doesn't last even if
01:19:09
it's 10 years it still won't last right quick one we bring in eight people a
01:19:14
month to watch these conversations live here in the studio when we're here in the UK and when we're in La if you want
01:19:21
to be one of those people all you've got to do is hit subscribe what do you you working on at the moment Simon because
01:19:26
you're you're known for writing amazing books and delivering amazing content what are you working on what's what's
01:19:31
compelling you at the moment what's your why well my why is to inspire people to
01:19:36
do the things that Inspire them so to each of us so that each of us can change our world for the better that is the the
01:19:41
foundation of everything that I do and and that's the test through which I run
01:19:47
everything that I will do like does this inspire people to affect some sort of change or
01:19:53
perspective um why does that matter to you it's not that it matters to me it's
01:19:59
that's who I am it's like that's core to my being it's like you're wise Court to your being my wise cord of my being that's my personality it's what wakes me
01:20:06
up every day it's what fulfills me it's what fills me as well so and then I have
01:20:11
my cause my just cause which is you know my why is where I come from my cause is where I'm going and my cause is to
01:20:18
create a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning Inspire to go to work feel safe
01:20:24
wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do you know that if you're going to put stress into something that you get to enjoy the
01:20:30
fruits of your own labor you know building something and looking at it and say I I helped build that you know that's a beautiful thing and so any work
01:20:38
that I do is always to advance that cause so there's a bunch of things that I'm doing some of which will work and
01:20:44
some of which will fail um I started a my own imprint with penguin Random House
01:20:50
oh really called optimism press amazing where I'm looking for the people who are uh ideas that I believe need to be
01:20:56
shared that help move uh the needle and Advance towards that cause um and so
01:21:01
we've published four books so far we have two coming on the way which is really exciting uh how to make a plant
01:21:08
love you uh trust first um um the power of giving away power and our newest one
01:21:14
is called partnering um and they all have a point of view about how to move or new ideas about how to advance this
01:21:21
closer towards this world that I imagine so um and old different takes on it which is really fun um so I have the
01:21:27
imprint um I'm working behind the scenes on police reform uh which has been
01:21:33
intense and fascinating and a steep education also looking um I'm I'm doing
01:21:39
some work to try and sort of figure out how to drive Innovation inside large bureaucracies um so I'm trying to figure
01:21:46
out I'm working behind the scenes trying to work with some really forward minded uh forward- minded really um infinite
01:21:53
minded young CEOs or at least younger companies to help them figure out how to
01:21:59
build infinite minded companies now it doesn't matter if they sell it doesn't matter if they have a liquidity event
01:22:05
but they're not driven by the sale they're not driven by the liquidity event they're driven to build a company that can Outlast them and they're driven
01:22:11
to build cultures that can withstand the test of time and the loss of every single employee you know that you could
01:22:17
have an entire New Generation come in and the company will survive um and so I really want to I'm I'm I'm looking for
01:22:23
those companies that I think are worth supporting and helping them build a new kind of company for the Next Generation
01:22:30
because I think the way we've been doing it for the past 30 40 years has been really not helpful to the economy and to
01:22:37
the world and I think that we have to find new ways to do it in other words I'm putting my money where my mouth is I'm all the books that I've written
01:22:43
about these things I'm going to try and get under the hood and try and help these companies do it you're Brilliance
01:22:49
you know I saw it in the list of all the things you're doing you're brilliant but I also see it in all the work you've created I see it in the content you put
01:22:54
out the your Brilliance is very obvious I sat here with the the guy that trained Michael Jordan for 15 years and then he
01:23:00
trained Kobe afterwards and he said that with our Brilliance often comes what he refers to as like our dark side which is
01:23:07
the things we struggle with and those and he says they there tends to be a relationship between our Brilliance and our struggle or our dark side are you
01:23:15
aware of what your dark side is in terms of the cost of your Brilliance well I think
01:23:22
um first of all I don't think I'm brilliant I know that sounds sort of
01:23:27
like falsely humble but I really don't think of myself that way I genuinely think of myself as an idiot and and I'm
01:23:35
not being glib at all I I don't really understand very complex things um and I
01:23:42
have pretty bad ADHD and so everybody thinks I'm I'm extremely well read and
01:23:48
the reality is I've written more books than I've read and
01:23:53
and I just I love the idea of reading I I don't I can't read I don't read I
01:23:58
learn by listening and talking and so uh um and so very complex things my brain
01:24:06
doesn't work that way and so I I've learned to ask lots and lots and lots of questions so that something can be
01:24:12
simplified to the level that I can understand it and if it's simple and I can understand it that means I can
01:24:18
repeat it and so my books are my ability to understand complex things by asking
01:24:23
other people lots and lots and lots of questions so I can simplify it enough so that other people can understand these complex things too talking about biology
01:24:29
and anthropology of you know all kinds of you know things that yes I know that I've oversimplified them I'm fully aware
01:24:35
you know like people who critic you know criticize me like this is Pup Culture you know pup science I know that but if
01:24:41
I make it it's full complexity all I've done done is written a textbook well that's not helpful is it so I don't
01:24:46
think of myself in the way that you receive my work you know and I think that maybe the impact of my work may be
01:24:53
perceived as genius but let us not confuse that the impact of the work that may be perceived as genius doesn't make
01:24:59
the person who produced it a genius right so I I reject I'm flattered by but
01:25:05
reject the the the compliment even though it's a gift I'm supposed to accept a gift yeah yeah yeah um uh take
01:25:12
your gift back it has no use here um so when you ask me like what's the balance of genius genius being this thing off
01:25:19
the scale all the way far away over there well if I'm don't think of myself or even live my life that way then the
01:25:26
balance of something is probably a little closer to the middle so do I have darkness of course I have Darkness you
01:25:31
know uh do I find that Darkness absolutely fascinating I do what is it
01:25:37
uh the I mean a lot of my insecurities uh that I'm that I've dealt
01:25:44
with some of like I've it I don't think I've ever actually said out loud on a podcast like this I might have mentioned
01:25:51
it a couple times scarily like people would always ask me um so Simon what books are you reading
01:25:56
or what books are in your bedside table well I can answer that question because I have a pile of about five or six books
01:26:01
on my bedside table and I've read none of them but they've been sitting there for like two years I've read some of two
01:26:08
of them I honestly don't remember the last book I finished other than my own because I had to read it for the book on
01:26:14
tape you know for the audio book um and so I would always answer that question I
01:26:19
would name one of the books or I just name one of my perennial favorites like oh man search for meaning you know know
01:26:25
and only now I'm sort of getting comfortable with the idea of saying out loud I don't read books and not because
01:26:30
I don't like them it's because I struggle to um the good news is I learned how to learn without them I wish
01:26:37
I could read because there's so much good stuff in them and I know that they go into level of depth that I really want to understand but there you go and
01:26:44
I think that goes to the honesty thing you know I'm realizing that me trying to answer the question and avoid
01:26:51
embarrassment um is valuable for people who like to read books but for the people who struggle to read books I just
01:26:57
made them feel worse you know and somebody pointed that out to me it's like every time I lied about I never
01:27:03
lied they said What books you reading said well this is on my bedside table um or I believe this book is important you
01:27:09
know or I just picked up this new book which would all be true I just didn't read them um that there's a group of
01:27:16
people who also struggle to read for whatever dyslexia or add or whatever it is and and I'm I'm living proof that you
01:27:24
can do okay without it now that doesn't mean you can't learn but you got to find the hack there's a couple books I
01:27:32
finished um I finished I finished The Da Vinci Code
01:27:38
okay it's so good and it's you know why because it's written with really really really short chapters so read like three
01:27:45
pages that's I'm the person who like always looks Pages ahead to see how much I have to go and if it's like 50 pages I'm like G yeah yeah yeah how does that
01:27:52
change how you write though if you if you're not a yourself when you ironic isn't it yeah that I yeah it's ironic
01:27:58
that I ended up writing books writing is a is a it's different um because if it's
01:28:04
really fun when I'm editing because if I'm boring myself I just cut that whole section and so the books have my sense
01:28:12
of humor in them like there's little jokes in there because it makes me giggle and I write about the things that
01:28:18
I think are really interesting and I tell the stories that make me interested and and I can make myself with some of
01:28:24
those stories in the book and I can give myself Goosebumps with some of the stories in that book and if I'm doing it for myself it's probably working for
01:28:29
others too you know um but uh I I do love ideas and I love dissecting ideas
01:28:37
and understanding ideas and I really love understanding why things work I am a little kid at heart you know I want to
01:28:43
know why um not as a noun as I popularized it with start with why but as a question like why is it that way
01:28:49
I'm really I love that question it is it is a little kid question you know for some reason as adults we stop asking and
01:28:56
started just blindly accepting and that doesn't mean I have to be rebellious in the question it's not it's not an
01:29:02
accusation like why are you doing it that way it's genuine curiosity like why
01:29:07
does it work that way um and I love that and when I discover things that
01:29:12
are Illuminating to me and I'm able to explain them to my friends my friends
01:29:17
can understand these things and the joy I see in people's faces and when they when I challenge their perspective
01:29:25
then the the fun is to share it well I'm going to give you your the gift back of
01:29:30
Brilliance thank you the reason why I think I do use the word Brilliance is because you meet people sometimes that
01:29:37
have one of the three things I believe you used the word genius oh did I use gen
01:29:42
genius um you meet people sometimes who have like one of the what I consider to be the Holy Trinity of like affecting
01:29:48
change as a as an orator sometimes they have wisdom sometimes they're like good storytellers and then some sometimes
01:29:54
they they have the delivery but you rarely meet people that have all three your delivery in terms of when you deliver ideas the way you kind like
01:30:00
punctuate sentences and the tone of it keeps people incredibly engaged and I think you gave me the root cause of that
01:30:06
when you said you had ADHD and you're you're a bad reader because you find it hard to hold um you find it hard for
01:30:12
other things to hold your attention so you're very good at holding the attention of someone else listening and then the securest way in which you
01:30:17
deliver a point as well makes incredibly engaging from a storytelling perspective and then the wisdom or the simple idea
01:30:22
that underpins it that we can understand cuz I've sat here before and honestly we've deleted podcasts because someone comes in they're a genius mathematician
01:30:29
yeah but when you ask them to make that complex math idea relevant and resonant in my own
01:30:35
life it's impossible we we we deleted the episode because they're too smart to like to to simplify for sure um but you
01:30:43
you're able to do that that's why your books are so important and that's why all the content you put out online and on your YouTube channels and Instagram
01:30:48
is so necessary we have a closing tradition on this podcast where
01:30:54
the last guest asks a question for the next guest oh cool so they wrote it in this diary they don't know who they're writing it for I love that and when you
01:31:01
write your question you also won't know who you're writing it for but it's our way of all the guests talking to each other oh that's great in a long linear sequence do I get to know who's asking
01:31:08
you don't I don't okay what was the happiest moment of your life so
01:31:15
far the happiest I I literally can't answer the question it's for me it's my
01:31:21
happiness doesn't exist in the past it's I've done many things that made me happy
01:31:26
but I'm much more interested in what's going to happen next I'm probably better at answering
01:31:33
the question what's the happiest thing you're going to do um I I'm I'm actually drawing a blank
01:31:40
what is the happiest thing you're going to do um I walked into that one didn't
01:31:47
I um the happiest thing I'm going to do is actually solve the problems and or at
01:31:55
least contribute to the solution of some of those problems that we talked about like I will be very happy when I help
01:32:01
when I can contribute to police reform in this country I will be very happy
01:32:06
when I can figure out better systems to help reinvent what modern
01:32:15
business looks like and reject everything that Jack Welch built you know and
01:32:22
disrupt sharehold to Supremacy and the way that we build companies now I will be very happy to demonstrate a momentum
01:32:30
towards an entirely different direction um I will be very happy um if all of the sum of my work
01:32:38
makes it feel like I have moved the needle somewhat closer though not final
01:32:44
towards that Vision I talked about of an inspired safe and fulfilled World ironically those sound like infinite games many of them yeah I don't believe
01:32:51
I I mean all of the things that will make make me happy will be incomplete I I I don't expect them to be complete
01:32:58
what will bring me joy it like when when when you if let me rephrase the question for
01:33:04
myself which is how will you know you lived a life worth living it's kind of the same question
01:33:09
right and the answer will be is because other people will pick up where I left off and continue without me that I was
01:33:18
clear enough my cause was compelling enough and the tools that I left were sharp enough that other figured out how
01:33:24
to not only use them but make them better and reinvent new ones I I will have lived a life worth living if I can
01:33:30
look back and say it will keep going without me because it doesn't need me and that's the
01:33:36
goal Simon thank you it's a a huge honor and a pleasure and it's very clear why
01:33:42
you were probably the most requested guest on this this podcast um from our from our viewers and you've definitely
01:33:49
given much more than um I could have ever hoped for in terms of your generosity and wisdom to me but also to our listeners in this conversation so
01:33:55
thank you so much for your generosity Simon thank you it's it's been a joy um and you it's one of the best podcasts
01:34:03
I've ever done I mean you are so engaging and and driven your cause comes
01:34:09
out clear which is you are so driven by the truth you are so compelled by the
01:34:14
truth that anybody sitting here really wants to offer only truth um uh and uh
01:34:22
it's a Cause worth fighting for thank you I will accept the gift we are all looking for ways to live
01:34:29
a little bit more sustainably and to make more conscious choices in our day-to-day routines so when a brand like
01:34:35
my energy who I've spoken about before offered to sponsor this podcast I felt like and I knew deep down inside that I
01:34:42
had to help them share their mission to create an even Greener World it feels like there's not much more fulfilling
01:34:47
than that and their products provide an easy and cost-effective way to make a sustainable switch in your life and
01:34:52
they've got some existing new products coming out that I can't wait to use myself and I'll let you know as I use
01:34:58
those products how I get on so if you're a my Energy customer at the moment let me know your favorite products Down
01:35:04
Below in the comment section and if you haven't checked them out yet go to my energy.com and find out a lot more about
01:35:10
who they are and what they're doing if you're one of those people that wants to make a sustainable switch my energy.com
01:35:16
is the place for you [Music]
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oh [Music]
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