An Optimist's Approach to Work and Life | Full Interview

How do you just find, like, what you do? You're not a motivational speaker. Like, where do you fall in what. What. Like, what bucket would you say you fall in in terms of what you do for a living? I'm just. Let's just start with the. With that, and then we're gonna delve into, hopefully lots of other stuff.

So, I mean, my. My immediate reaction is to say I'm an optimist. You know, I. I define myself by who I am, not what I do. And I think that one of the big challenges that a lot of people face is they. They intertwine their identity with their work.

Yeah.

I am a lawyer. You know, I am a fitness coach or whatever, you know, somebody wants to do. And then if you lose that job by your choice or not your own choice, or if you have great success and you get old and you decide to leave and retire or do something else, I see a lot of people have an identity crisis because they no longer do the thing that they did.

Yeah.

And so I don't mind what I do because I get to be an optimist in everything that I do.

And, you know, I've. The way I live my life is. Is I live completely focused with a vision that is extremely far away. Completely. I'll never get there. You know, I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. And for me, the objective is to figure out all the ways that I can to start moving closer and closer towards that world. And so for the better part of the last, you know.

Decade or more, I bet on the. On leaders. I believe that leaders. The best bet that we have to get to that world, that I imagine that if we can find and celebrate and support the kinds of leaders who can build great organizations where people feel like they belong, that feel like they're contributing something bigger than themselves, then we are more likely to get to that world. Right now. What's my role in that again? Completely agnostic. I never, ever imagined that I would be an author. I was never one of those people who thought I had a book in them, you know, and after every book I've written, I've said, okay, that's probably my last one. And I said that after the first one, you know.

But here I am an author because the opportunity.

Showed up that I thought, oh, this is a good way to move towards that vision. Right. Then people would invite me to speak about my ideas and I thought, okay, never, ever wanted to be a public speaker. Didn't even know that was a career. You know, it's true. I, um.

I actually am more of a behind the scenes person. I've never desired to be in the front of a proscenium. But when the opportunities presented themselves, I thought, well, this is a very good way for me to spread this message and to spread this vision. And so, so when you ask me what do I do, I do anything that I need to do to advance towards that vision. These days I'll write books and I'll speak about it. But who knows what the next five years will look like? It could be completely, completely different.

Well, oh my. Okay, so in, in that one answer I have now, isn't that annoying that.

You say, what do you do? And it takes me 30 minutes.

Yeah, exactly. I have, I actually have a friend who did a TED Talk on this. Like when someone asks you that question of what do you do to. How to like, do an elevator pitch?

Well, I can tell you what I say on an airplane, if somebody says, okay, would you.

Yeah, tell me what you say.

I say, I teach leaders and organizations how to, to inspire people.

All right, that's good.

And if they believe what I believe, they say, inspiration. That's cool. How do you do that? And we can talk about my work for as long as they can stand it. And if they don't believe what I believe, they say, what kind of companies.

What kind of organizations? So it's a great filter.

Yeah.

Immediately I know if they're on the same wavelength as me or not.

Do people recognize you in airplanes these days? Yeah, yeah, they do. Well, okay, first of all, my, my, I guess to go back even further than I was going to was. Did you. Even when your TED Talk is probably what, the number two or three most viewed of all time, right? Like 80 million, 100 million by now, something insane.

I don't, I don't know if it's that high, but yeah, it's done.

Well, yeah, it's pretty. And then of course, being. I'm sure it's actually even higher because it's been shared and shared and shared. Right. But were you even like, how did that even like. Because that takes you. I did a TED Talk recently, a couple years ago, and that was considered a viral TED talk with like 5 million or 6 million. And that like, put my life on a different trajectory. I can't even imagine with your type of success in that TED Talk, would you. Were you completely floored at like the Response that, that it had.

Yes and no is the simple answer.

Okay.

I had.

Is there ever a simple answer with you?

Sometimes.

Okay.

The answer is yes and no. You know, I had been giving versions of that talk for three years before I actually did the TedX.

Okay.

I'd never done it that short.

Right.

You know, they were hour long versions. And so I knew that the message had resonance and I, and, and I'd been asked so many of the difficult questions that I worked out a lot of the kinks and the thinking. So I knew that the message had resonance. I knew that people liked it. So, so I knew that.

Okay.

But I never expected this, this rinky dink TED Talk TEDx Talk that I did in, you know, in a hangar in Puget Sound with like a 50 or 100 people in the room, you know, where the camera wasn't. It's very low quality.

Right.

You know, my microphone breaks in the middle of me talking, you know, me too. You know, like, literally they like trading up mics, you know, I remember seeing that.

That was hilarious.

And, and it's living proof that things can go wrong and it'll be fine.

Yeah, totally fine.

So I, I didn't know that the TEDx talk would do what it did.

Okay.

And back then it was unheard of to put a TEDx on the main TED website, so they only put them on YouTube.

Right.

And there was a separate page for TEDx talks just on YouTube, you know, and then the main TED talks would just be on the TED, Ted.com and it very quickly became the most watched TEDx of all. And then they put it on Ted.com and I only found out that they were going to do that a week before they did it, so. And then it continued to grow, you know, extremely fast. So, yeah, that was all a shock to me. That was all a surprise to me. I never, I knew the message had resonance. I. Resonance. I never knew that it was going to do that. That. That was a surprise. Yeah.

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

I wouldn't say disgruntled. I, I didn't love it. I had fallen out of love. Yeah.

Okay.

I was, I Had no passion for my career.

Okay.

This was a chosen career. Like, I started my own business in a category in a profession that I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life in.

Consulting marketing. Oh, okay.

You know, And. And to wake up one morning with a superficially good life. I own my own business. We had amazing clients. We did really good work. Our clients liked us and didn't want to do it anymore.

Right.

It's kind of distressing because as I. As I said when we started, you know, so many of us intertwine our identities with our work, and if I don't like my work, then who am I?

Right?

And so I went through that, which was incredibly unfun.

And it was the discovery of this. Of this little idea that I called the golden circle, you know, where we all know what we do. Some of us know how we do it, but very few of us know why we do what we do. And I realized I didn't know why I was doing what I was doing. And it was. It was that crisis that was designed to do nothing more than help me find my own passion to get back my. My mojo that put me in a path that was unexpected.

My. My entire career is an accident, you know?

Amazing.

I am living proof that. That you can. That it. You don't have to have a plan.

Right, Right, Right, exactly. And it worked out for you. Right?

You have to have a vision, you have to have a vector, you have to have a direction. But you definitely don't need to know the individual steps.

So you kind of answered earlier. Well, before I even go into that, you said something in one. Your first answer to me, which I thought was interesting that you're not defining yourself by compartmentalize that a little bit. You know what I mean? Because I find it very difficult, like, what I do. It's not. Two things happen. I think that other people compartmentalize you as well. So if I was a health and fitness person, but I'm also this thing, and that thing and that thing, the other outside from that, people pigeonhole you. So it's very hard to break away. You're saying that, like, you're. You're not really defined by what you do, but you know what you want or how you're being an optimist. How. What kind of advice or would you suggest for other people out there? Because I think that there's a lot of confusion, and people do get pigeonholed and. Or they don't know the difference. Like, they are. They're confused because, like, you Said they are what they do. And so there's no distinction.

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

Right.

Because they wanted me to do the thing that they knew was good. They wouldn't let me try something new. And so I just arbitrarily picked one and basically didn't do as I was told and decided to do something new on the stage. And I think there's an. And I'm, you know, I'm not advocate. I'm not saying there's a one size fits all here. You know, there's a, there's a risk tolerance. But I like testing things in real life. You know, many of my ideas are from real life scenarios where it's not like practice, practice, practice. Okay. It's ready for the real world now. You know, there have been more than one occasion where I've walked out on stage and go, okay, they, they, they brought me in to do talk about this, but I'm having some new ideas, you guys. Okay. If I try talking about this, it might completely fail. Just wanted to get some, you know, some. And like, people especially you pick your audiences, you pick a room full of entrepreneurs.

Right.

You know, they're fine with it, you know.

Right, right, right.

If I pick a room full of engineers, maybe not, you know, Right. But maybe not, you know, maybe engineers are fine with that too.

And so, and then I would try new things and, and, you know.

I think, I think what makes it work is very often when we do these things, we show up with a selfish disposition.

Right.

I hope they like me. I hope they like my work. I hope they buy my book. I hope they, you know, go to my website. I hope they follow me on social media. And we act that way, you know, we put a picture behind us on the PowerPoint and it has our, all of our social media handles on it, and it has a phone number and a website and an email address. And we say at the end, you know, somebody asks a question, like, you know, question, whatever, and they. And we reply, well, you'll have to read my book, or, well, that's on, that's from my book, you know, and it's like we put ourselves. And that's people, people can tell. And in those cases, we're not rooting for you. In fact, we're going to try and trip you up.

Right.

Because we can't help ourselves. It's entertaining. You know, you put yourself at the front. We'll have fun with that. And so I've. I've learned early to show up with a giver's mentality where I don't care if. If they like me, I don't care if they buy a book. I don't care if they follow me on social media or not. All I know is I have something that I think is really valuable, and I'm gonna give it to you. I want to give it to you, and I believe I'm giving to you with all of my gusto and all of my energy. And so, like, I remember, you know, people would apologize because they, you know, they said there's going to be this size event, and, like, only half the number of people showed up and they're apologizing. And I know a lot of speakers who would get angry. You promised me this size audience. And I was like, well, I just feel sorry for the people who didn't show up, because the people who did show up are going to get all of me.

Right.

You know, I hold back nothing.

And I think when you show up with a giver's heart, and I literally will say that before I go out on a stage, I will literally say under my breath, before I step on the stage, you're here to give, I will remind myself that what I'm about to do is. Is an act of generosity. I think I have something pretty and I want to share it. And people can tell.

Yeah, authenticity.

People can tell. And so you have a wide berth when you show up with a giver's heart. You can make mistakes and you can stumble over your words, and you can. You can talk a little bit too much, like I am right now, and people are just fine with it.

Yeah.

You know, so I think, you know, we're highly attuned social animals, and if you show up to give, you can, believe it or not, you can. You can experiment a lot.

How do you. How can someone change that, though, right? Like, if you're innately someone who doesn't think like that. Right. Like, I'm here to give because you're right. Like human, I think, human nature some. I want to sell my book. Go check out my handle. Do this, do that, do that. How do you shift, like, your. Your mindset. How do you. Can you train your brain to Think differently like that so it is authentic because you, by just saying it doesn't make it so correct. Right.

Of course you can train yourself. Like, I wish I could be healthy, but you know, there's so many things and I'm just not a healthy person. And you know, can I ever be healthy? Of course, of course. You just practice it. Like you just start. Yes, of course. And it may not work the first five or ten times, you know, you go to the gym a bunch of times in the row, you will see no results.

Right.

You know, like, these things sometimes take time. It's the same. You know, the best I can sum it up when I really started to learn this lesson was.

Many years ago. I had a meeting at the Pentagon, of all places, with a big fancy general. And I was waiting in the, in the foyer, just waiting for, for him. And have you ever had it where you, where you go to a meeting or in a Pentagon?

No.

Well, I mean, you've had meetings and somebody comes to get you.

Yeah.

To take you to the conference room or the, or the, or the, or the board, the office or whatever. And you have hallway talk. Because walking quietly down a hallway is too uncomfortable.

Yeah.

And so you have hallway talk, which is nonsense. It's things like, how is, you know, hot day out today? Or did you have an easy trip?

It's just nonsense. And as soon as you walk into the room, that ceases. Right. Well, that's what happened to me. The general came to get me and we were walking back to his office and the hallway talk ensued. And he said, you know, Simon, I had everyone in my office read your book. And I said, my publisher thanks you. And, and he said, tell them not to bother. I had them read my copy.

That's what he said to you?

That's what he said to me. So I learned total book sales one, total impact huge versus I go to an event and they give away 500 free copies of my book, but they use them as, you know, coasters and doorstops. Total book sales, 500, total impact zero. And so I had to learn that it's not always easy to measure the impact that we have in the short term. Now I know over the long term, book sales are a reflection of the value of my ideas and whether people want them. Otherwise it would just stop selling. I know over the time, but in the short term, literally, it tells me nothing. And I think too many of us confuse that. The short term impacts that we're having are producing long term value or conversely, having no short term Impact means we're having no value. And so I treat it like exercise, which is, which is.

I know that process. The process matters. So for example, you can't go to the gym for nine hours and get into shape. It literally doesn't work, right? No matter how much effort you put in. But if you work out every single day for 20 minutes, guaranteed 100% you will get into shape, right? When will you get into shape? No clue, right? No one knows over time. And everyone's different. Some people a little quicker, some people a little slower. And yet we are 100% sure, 100%, it'll 100% work. I just don't know when. And we're also obsessed with predicting when it has to be this quarter, it has to be the end of the year, it has to be when we pay taxes. It has whatever it is. And I got very comfortable saying, I know that if I stick to the process, work out every day for 20 minutes, I know 100% it's going to work. And I have to get comfortable, that I have no control over when some, sometimes quicker, sometimes slower. And so the things that I wrote about in start with why is the game plan that I have followed since I first wrote about it, since I first started talking about it. I do start with why? When somebody says, what do you do? I don't tell them what I do, I tell them what I believe. And I wrote about the law of diffusion of innovations, which is a religion.

For me, and explain what that is.

So all populations sift across the standard deviation, the whole, the, the old bell curve, right? If you have high performers in a population, you're gonna have low performers, you're gonna have an average, always, right? What the law of diffusion tells us is that the first two and a half percent of any population are your innovators. Use your big idea people, right? Then the next about 13 and a half percent of your population or early adopters, these people are very comfortable spending extra money, time, energy, making some sort of sacrifice to be a part of something that's bigger than themselves, that reflects who they are. Then you have the majority, the early majority and the late majority. A little more cynical, little more practical, you know, what's in it for me? Will I get my money back if it doesn't work? You know, will I get in trouble? You know, that kind of thing, you know, a little more risk averse. And then finally, the last 16%, you have your laggards. The only reason they do anything is because you basically don't have a choice anymore.

Right.

What the law of diffusion tells us is that if you want to have mass market success, if you want an idea to spread or be sticky.

You have to achieve between 15 and 18% market penetration. And then a social phenomenon happens called a tipping point. And it just goes. But because most of us want the majority, we aim all of our efforts at the majority.

We.

Which actually doesn't work because the majority will not try something new until somebody else has tried it first.

Right.

And so as soon as I learned that, I became obsessed with early adopters. And, you know, I get accused now people say, oh, but you can afford to turn work down. I'm like, no, no, no. I've been targeting work down. When I was leaving, living hand to mouth, like, I needed every gig I could get because I was broke and I had no money in my bank account. Like, you were totally. Yeah, I mean, I was literally living paycheck to paycheck. And. And I.

When was this?

I mean, just when I first discovered. Start with why. I remember I. I walked away from a marketing business that I had a lot of passion.

Yeah.

For lost passion for. When I discovered this start with why thing. I decided to make myself the guinea pig and I shut down my marketing company. So I. I had no discernible.

You did shut. Shut it down. I was going to ask you that.

I shut it down. I had no discernible. I had no discernible income. And so I was literally, like, scraping it together.

But you had clients. You just decided one day I walked away from them. You just didn't want to do it anymore.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So it wasn't for. Because, like, the business was, like, flailing.

I mean, it was flailing because when you have no passion for something that turns out it makes it a lot harder.

Right.

So, I mean, you know, it's like, yes, I lost my passion. The business was flailing. Yeah.

I probably wouldn't have gone out of business, but it definitely felt that way.

Right. You know, but turning down all this business.

So I'll give you a real life example. You. I got very, very good at discerning who was a believer and who wasn't, who was early adopter and who wasn't. So go back to the elevator pitch. You know, what do you do? I teach leaders and organizations how to inspire people. If they hear the word inspire, okay. They believe what I believe. If they don't hear the word inspire, they don't believe what I believe. Right. It's. What wavelength are we on? The same wavelength. And I remember I actually, this is a true story. I remember somebody had this is early days. There was no start with why book. There was no start with white TED Talk. And I was just sort of like, trying to figure it out. And I was doing consulting, doing why discovery stuff. And I remember a guy called me and he said, I got your phone number from someone. Convince me why I should hire you. Right. And I did not go into sales pitch mode, because what went through my head is this guy's not an early adopter. This guy will not help me spread my message. This guy is. Wants to be convinced. And I literally said, I can't help you. Come on, convince me. I said, there's nothing I can say or do that will convince you that you and I should work together. I'm the wrong guy for you. Right. And I never worked with him. Now, I needed the client, but he was the wrong client. And I'd rather struggle just a little bit longer to find the right person. Person to work with. Because when I found the right people to work with, even if I made a little less money, what they did is they told five people about me or 10 people about me. But they did more than that. They told the right people about me.

Right.

Or they made introductions by saying, simon, there's somebody you need to meet. And they would tell their friends, you need to meet this person. Right. Which is way more powerful than me saying anything that if it comes from an objective third party. And so other people were responsible for my message spreading. Other people responsible for the people I met, other people responsible for helping me sell the book. And I had no PR machine or anything like that.

Right.

It was people. You know, I remember going, in the early days, I would ask the audience, you know, how many of you have seen the TED Talk? And a lot of people raise their hands, and I said, how many people were sent it by someone else? And that number is usually around 75%. So these people weren't even Tedsters.

Right.

You know, somebody said, oh, my God, you know, who would love this? And they would send it to their friend.

Yeah.

And that's all the law of diffusion. And so there's nothing that I'm doing that's mythical or magical. Right. There's social phenomena that I've written about, other people have written about. The law of diffusion is not my idea. It's Emmett Rogers in the 1960s. You know.

The only thing that I did like anything that works is I had the discipline to do it.

That's right.

You want to get into shape. You have to have the discipline to do it. You want to be healthy, you have to have the discipline to do it. And so. And you have to get comfortable that you cannot predict when success happens. You just have to believe that the process works and you stick to the process. That's all I did. And everything that it is written about in that book. Yeah, that's literally the thing that I followed.

So you actually. So you believe number one. And you had the discipline to kind of follow it through.

It's hard to turn down now. Look, it's not a perfect system. Like even somebody who's very healthy sometimes wants to have a big piece of chocolate cake.

Yes.

But you do it with eyes wide open. Like, you know, this puts you slightly out of balance. You know that you might have to do a little extra work to get it out of your system. And you also know you can do it now and then, but you can't do it every day.

Right, Right.

So did I do business with clients I shouldn't have? Of course I did.

Right. But I'm a human for God's sake.

But, and, or if I needed to pay bills.

Right.

But I did it with eyes wide open, not believing that this was gonna like set me up. And I was doing it for short term because I needed a little infusion of sugar.

Right.

You know, and I knew not to do it too often. So it's, it's the same mentality.

Yeah, it is the same mentality. It's just very hard to do. And people like to take the short term gratification quick fix all the time. Especially in today's time. I feel like I don't know what, I do know what you think, but I feel like when I grew up, you know, I do know what you think. It was a different mentality like, than, than it is today. Like people's work ethic isn't as, as strong. If I was to be honest, what I think what I call. It's very much like a caudal culture type of world right now where everyone always gets a participation trophy. People are offended very easily. It's very, very different. It's hard to, I feel it's hard to lead in a world like that. And it's hard to like work in a world like that when you have so many things. I feel so many constraints around the other people. Right. Like nobody wants, nobody wants to work, but also nobody wants to. Nobody, nobody wants to be given direction. Everyone wants to be a leader, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but yet nobody Wants to put in the discipline, the hard work and the effort. Have you noticed this might yourself, even though you are very optimistic about, of course, people.

Of course.

Yeah, of course. I mean, each generation is different. They have their, you know, advantages and disadvantages. I think the thing that sums up all of those what I would call symptoms that you're listing is there's a, A deep ingrained impatience in this younger generation that previous generations seem to have, have less of. You know, you, you suggest to a young kid, why don't you take a gap year before college? You know, and the thought of taking a year off, literally, what the thought that goes through their mind is, I'm, I might, then I'll be behind in my career.

Right.

You know, missing the value that you actually bring from a year off to go explorers, travel, you know, work even.

Or I have to have the perfect job out of the gate and everything has to go perfectly and I have to get promoted quickly because if I don't, I'm going to be behind and, you know, you know, reaching 25, 26, 27 years old and having this quarter life crisis and panic, which, you know, previous generations didn't really have quarter life crises.

You know, where you feel like, oh, my God, what, my. What, what's my career? What's my life? You know, it's like there's this strange impatience and it probably comes from growing up in a world of instant gratification, you know, where, you know.

Years before social media, if you wanted to go on a date, you know, first you had to meet them somewhere and you.

Had to be like, hey, you know, yes.

And like, somebody had to muster up the courage to ask, and somebody had to muster up the courage to go. And it was, it took a little bit of time to get a first date, a little bit of flirting, a little bit of, you had to learn something, right?

Socialization.

Socialization where now you just swipe, right? And I got a date instantly. Like, I'm feeling a little lazy. I'm just, you know, there's nothing on tv. Oh, look, I got a date.

Exactly.

You know, shopping, you just go on Amazon and it literally shows up the.

Next day or the same day or.

The same day in some cases. You know, even early online shopping, you know, you'd buy something in two weeks, later it would show up, you know, totally. And now it's, now it's the next day and we're kind of just used to that. We're kind of used to, you know, we. Even information, you know, like, you're sitting at dinner, you're like, who is that actor? Hold on.

Or Alexa, who is so and so.

Right. I have unlimited access to unlimited information.

I did that with you, by the way. Not for me, but for my nine year old. Oh, yes.

Aside. I wish they would add the word please at the end of Alexa.

Yes, that would be nice, wouldn't it?

You know, Alexa, turn on the lights, please. Yes, otherwise it won't work. Different, different conversations.

Tell Jeff Bezos that next time you.

Talk, please tell Jeff to Bezos, please. Yeah.

So by the way, have you ever talked to the Amazon? Because you talk about them all the time as an example of like a company and blah, blah, blah. And lots of the talks you do. Did you ever do any kind of like speaking anything with them or learn?

I haven't. Oh yeah.

Or with Jeff Bezos. I'm going to write that down.

Okay. Email Jeff.

Yeah, I'm going to.

So I, you know, I think it's, you know, it's, we're all products of our childhood, you know, we're our environment. And our environments were all molded by the experiences we have and the experiences around us when we're younger and they affect our worldview. And I think if you grew up in a world of instant gratification, of get, get, get, get, get, you know.

There'S very little waiting for things, even grades. You don't wait for grades. You find them out. You take a test, you find out the grade immediately.

Right?

You know, you know, you take a standardized test, you can log on and get the grades when you're done with the test.

Absolutely. I'm not, I want to interject though, what I'm thinking more about is the fact that people's work ethic isn't high anymore. Like they want the instant gratification, but also there, there's a laziness that's instilled because I think, because everything comes so easy, the swiping to find the date to or you know, Amazon to like, you know, when you want to buy something. But there's also this like other like layer of just, you know, work, life, balance and this and that. And like I know you're all about balance. So this is going to be kind of hard for me to kind of explain, talk to you about, but like, is there such a thing when you're, when you're really trying to like build, you know, like habits and hustle, when you like you're trying to build your career at the beginning and really want to strive and be successful? Isn't there an imbalance, just naturally. Of course. Right, of course.

But.

Balance is the wrong. Balances doesn't mean even.

Oh, okay, right.

You know, it's not about equals, but equitable.

Okay, right.

Like great relationships aren't equal, they're equitable.

Right.

An equal relationship is I cook, you cook. I clean, you clean. I do the dishes, you do the dishes. That's, you know, that's an equal relationship. An equitable relationship is I'll cook, you do the dishes, I'll put the kids to bed, you take out the garbage. That's an equitable relationship. Right. We're not doing the same things. It's not equal, but it feels balanced.

Right.

Everybody's okay with the distribution of labor. Right. And we have to remember that there's nothing for free. There's nothing in this world that comes for free. And everything that you get comes at a cost, always. And the only question is, is the cost worth it?

Right.

And so if you want to achieve, like, there's a lot of people who've done extremely well, and the question is, at what cost? What we're talking about is, is the desire to have without paying for it, you know, which is, I want this, but I'm not willing to pay the cost. Right. So, for example, working really hard to get something, I want to achieve this. The cost is I'm going to have a couple sleepless nights, I'm going to work a little harder, I'm going to miss out on some social events. I might be a little bit exhausted now and then, but for me, that's worth the cost because of what I'm trying to accomplish. And so I think what we're seeing.

Is a misunderstanding of the cost of benefit.

Equation. And by the way, it's not for us to say whether the cost that was worth it to us is worth it to other people. It may not be. And that's not for us to decide. I think where we do get to interject is if you want to have something like what we've done, but you aren't willing to pay any cost and make any sacrifice, that's a complicated scenario. Right. Because ain't Nothing for free.

100%. I'm so happy that you said that because that is 100%, in my opinion, completely accurate.

But it's not for us to determine what someone's ambitions should be either. Like if somebody is totally fine.

Right.

You know, here.

Right.

And whatever here is defined as. I mean, it doesn't matter. It could be financial, it could be. Could be anything. Whatever it is, right? If somebody's fine here and, and they don't work a lot of hours and this is, and for them this is very happy, I think that's fantastic, right? I'm not telling anybody they have to live my way, your way, their way, this way, that way. I don't want to live one way either. Like, I don't need Max, Max, Max, whatever other people have, because I don't want to work to that degree either. Like, I accept that there's some degree of things that I can achieve because I'm just not willing to do the work. Absolutely, I'm okay with that.

And you're, but you already are self aware enough to know that about yourself.

Well, it's eyes wide open.

It's eyes wide. But I think it's, I think what you're saying is, basically what I'm saying is that there's a, there is a cost. You can't have it all if you want this. Sometimes, like when people say, oh, you know, you can have this work, you can be a, like for a woman, you could be a CEO and be a powerhouse, but also have like three kids and be a wonderful mom and then be an amazing wife. Like, something always has to give. So like to me that's like just being honest and being real.

A friend of mine who is a senior executive at a big company, a mom, you know, she had kids, she told me very early on when I was, she was like my work mom. Like I was entry level and she took me under her wing. She was a partner at the company. And I remember, I don't remember how the conversation came up, but she, I remember her telling me, she goes, any woman who decides to be, to want a career and to be a mother, to be a working mother, has to get used to the idea that you're always going to disappoint someone. You just have to get used to it. Either going to disappoint your company because you want to stay home with your kids, or you're going to disappoint your kids because you want to work late. Like you, you just have to get comfortable with the fact that you're always going to disappoint someone or sometimes you disappoint yourself.

Right?

You know, like, but these, but the point is, is what she was. There was another way of saying there's a cost for the choices I've made. And by the way, you can always change those choices too, right? Like that's also on the table. Like none of these things are you know, one and done.

Right. Etched in stone.

Etched in stone.

Right.

And I think that's one of the things that Covid did for a lot of us, which is we went back and reevaluated some of the choices we made and thought, oh, I can recalibrate, you know, And I think that's kind of what we're going through right now, which is this weird period of sort of like, sort of. Nobody's really exactly sure how the working world is going to net out. I think. I think there's a massive recalibration happening, you know, some of which shows up as, you know, debate over, do we come back to work? Do we not come back to work? Is it hybrid? What does that even look like? How does that even work? Does hybrid look like? What are the rules of hybrid?

What do you think of hybrid? What do you think of all these rules? Like, you're. I mean, you go into companies talking about this all the time, right?

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

But.

But the exact balance, I don't think anybody got it figured out yet. And how you enforce the balance, I don't think anybody's figured out yet. And I don't think the right balance is going to suit every company either. Like.

Right.

You know, I think it's going to be different, especially if you have people that have to come to work. You're in manufacturing or retail or something, and people who don't have to come to work because there's still accounting and back office in those companies. Does it create a divided system of haves and have nots? You know, people who have agency and people who don't. That's not healthy for a culture either. So I don't think we know yet. And I think it's a bit of chaos right now combined with the fact that many of us are, you know, sort of going through our own recalibrations, going, what kind of life do I want yeah. So I think it's a bit of a mess, but it's okay. It'll. It'll. It'll organize. I think chaos is great because chaos is an opportunity for creativity.

Right.

Because without chaos, you have to break something to change something. Right now you don't have to break it. You can just change it. So.

But when people.

Great opportunity.

You think so?

Because I think that you get to reinvent work. We get to reinvert. Reinvent work. What? Work is true.

But they. What. What happens if everybody's. There's, like, so much. There's so much flex. The pendulum has swung so far. What happened to collaboration? And.

Yeah, it'll all suffer. This is what happens.

And socialize again. Socialization. People are becoming like a ton of, like, automaton. Yes. Automatons. Yes. Because everything is like a screen or this. Like, we now don't even know, like, what people even really look like in real life.

We definitely don't know how tall they are. Yeah, Definitely don't know.

Nice. Nice. What do you call it?

We. We had somebody on our team that was hired during COVID and I'd never met her until, you know, a year into working with us.

Right.

And when I met her, she's six one. I was like. Like, I had no idea. Like, we're always the same height when I look at you on the screen.

Exactly.

So. So you're right. The pendulum did swing the other way, but that's what happens.

Yes.

It's a reaction. There's a cost for that reaction, and it'll come back. That's why I say it's a sort of a chaotic time.

But I think that.

You know, we can whine about it or we can say, okay, how do we sort of. How can we have some say of what it could be? And let's have those conversations out loud. Let's talk about the costs, let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages. Like, yes, it's great to have flexibility, to work from whatever you want, but it does damage collaboration and brainstorming. Like, creativity is going to go down because everybody's so excessively polite on Zoom, and they mute themselves when they're not speaking. And if you've ever had a brainstorming meeting, that's not how it is. It's messy and noisy, and you interrupt each other and nobody's offended when you interrupt each other and you're like, oh, I have an idea. And it's. And that's what produces great brainstorming.

Totally.

So, you know, I've Started when I have. It doesn't work with big meetings, but I've started doing with small meetings where I make everybody keep their microphones on. And I encourage just speaking out like it's a real meeting, you know, which, yeah, it does help. And it does help, but not the.

Same as being in person does not.

Of course not. You and I talking over a zoom would not feel exactly like this.

You can't create human connection when there's a screen in.

But I think we all know that. Like, that's not. That's not the news. I think the news is, well, okay, what are we going to do?

Right?

And, you know, some people are saying, well, I don't care about that because I value my freedom, I value my this, and I value where I want to live. And, you know, it's sort of like. I think the. If anything, you know, there's sort of a weird selfishness to it all, you know, and it goes back to what we're saying, which is I want. I want everything. I want my cake and I want to eat it, and I want everything, and everything's going to go my way. And, you know, having it my way is a very noble aspiration. Just unrealistic, right? You know, it's like, you have kids, you'd love to get all your sleep. You know, it's like, it's not how it works, right? And it goes back to what we were just saying a minute ago, which is there's a cost for everything. And. But that's okay. I think. I think. I think those lessons will be learned. You know, I said some. Some things ago. I said things on another podcast recently that when I read the comments, like, people were, like, lashing out, which I thought was so fascinating.

What did you say?

So I basically talked about how this young excuse. Younger. It's not completely, but it skews younger. Have become very comfortable quitting. It's become normalized where. When you and I were younger, whether even if you didn't like your job, you had to stay for at least a year because otherwise you destroy your resume.

Totally.

It just. It was. It is what it is. Like, you just had to suck it up for a year, by the way.

I saw you talk about that on something and I was. That's one of the things I was like, oh, my God. Exactly. That's so true.

So. So I. And this is what I talked about. And I talked about how we're quitting has become so normalized that there's a lot of people skews Younger who quit very quickly, you know, after three months or four months, maybe they like, they're having a bad week or they, they're, they're confrontation avoidant and don't ask for a raise so it's just easier to quit. Or maybe they got in trouble and they're like, you know, fuck my boss and like, I'm going to quit and okay, you know. And so, you know, what ends up happening is flash forward five years, there's going to be a portion of the, of the workforce that over the course of five years has had nine or ten jobs. And any employer is going to look at a resume and be like, yeah, no, I'm not going to take the, you're so smart, you're brilliant, but I can't take the risk, you know, or they have been in the workforce for five years, but they've only really had about six, seven months of work experience because they keep starting again and they know what it's like to work in calm waters, but they have yet to really sit through and weather a storm, you know, because going through, going through a hard time, whether you're having a hard time at work or whether the company's having a hard time, like you learn skills in that, that are valuable to companies and by the way, they're valuable to you. Right. And so, and I said these things and I couldn't believe the backlash, you know, in the comments.

Like what?

Well, you know, you know that I was speaking from the point of an employer and you know, that's about exploitation. And I'm like, I, I, you know, I'm not, I think there's a sort of a misunderstanding and a quick to judge, like, I have no judgment in what I'm saying. It's, it's an observation, it's an observation that, that younger people generally are more comfortable quitting more quickly.

Right.

And if we go back again, this is going to be our recurring theme. What's the cost of that?

Yes.

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

People. I see. To me, that is so absurd. That's how you build, like do hard things is how you build resilience and, and mental toughness. And I'm not asking anybody and you're not.

And I don't endure toxicity, you know.

Of course not.

I, I do.

But don't you, don't you do things like. Do you think I want to work out every single day and like grind on that? No. But if I want to, if I see the results that I get at the end of the day or the end of the year or whatever we're saying you put up with the stuff that you don't want to do for the long term gain of what you.

Can get, that there is an equation.

Right.

Right. And as I said, I think that when we, when we think of equations, we think of the short term benefit.

Yes.

And we. That's fine. There's always short term benefits and liabilities. There's no problem with that. But we also have to consider the long term benefits and liabilities. Especially it's in, in if we consider relationships or careers or you know, life. You know, these things are not, they're not, they're not finite games.

Right. Which is.

They keep going. And, and to think about them as, as, as.

Sort of these, what the word is, these unique experiences that don't exist in any context. You mean like.

There'S a word for it. I can't remember what it is, but it, but when you think of these events as discrete packets that have no consequences before or after that, there's no context.

Right.

I think it's just blind. I mean, of course there's context. There's context for everything.

Absolutely.

So.

Yeah, but what's it like? You, I think I saw something you're talking about. Like, was it like self actualization versus shared actualization? Right.

Yeah.

Because we're living in a. Everyone wants to be self actualized.

Yeah.

And we're saying that people now it's like a very selfish, me me oriented world. Right. What did you mean by shared? Like, can you explain that a little bit?

Yeah, I mean, I think that especially the United States overindexed on the concept of rugged individualism. And you can see it play out and how we, you know, what our guidance counselors tell us what our bosses tell us, you know, the incentive structures in our and reward systems in our universities and in our businesses, which is it's all individual performance, right. And we pay little to no consideration to teamwork or did you serve the team or did you serve yourself?

And that has cost, you know, right. To the team.

And, you know, it basically goes to Maslov's higher hierarchy of needs, which is where the self actualization came from.

That's the top of his.

So, so yeah, I, I think Maslov was wrong, right? So Maslov, hierarchy of needs, the base of the pyramid is food and shelter, you know, that you need that first. And the third rung up is human relationships. And at the top of the pyramid. Pyramid is self actualization. So you're supposed to work your way up the hierarchy of needs and until you get to self actualization. And what Maslov's mistake is is that he only thinks of us as individuals. But what he fails to consider is that we're also simultaneously members of groups. Every single one of us, every single day lives in paradox. You know, we are individuals. I want my own identity. I want my own individuality. I want to self express all of those things, all true and simultaneously. I'm a member of a family, I'm a member of a church, I'm a member of a team, I'm a member of a company, I'm a member of, you know, synagogue, synagogue, whatever, you know, like I have membership, you know, and I have responsibility as a, in the group, right? And there's a debate, do I put myself first at the sacrifice of the group or do I put the group first at the sacrifice of myself? And there's a, and some will say there's a whole school of thought that says you always prioritize yourself because if you don't help yourself, you can't help others. And they always give the same stupid analogy, which is when you're on a plane, you put your mask on before you can help somebody else. That's a crashing plane. Not a good analogy, Right? That's crashing plane with no, with, with no air in it, Right? Correct. You have to put yourself first. Correct? Right. That's not a good analogy for life.

Right.

But then there's a school of thought that says, no, you have to help others, always first, otherwise the group will never be there to help you. But that's martyrdom. And sometimes you get to it to a point where you actually do destroy yourself because you're trying so hard to help everyone. Everybody else, put everybody else first. Right? The answer is both. It's a paradox, it's complicated. And so where Maslov got it wrong is he failed to consider us as members of groups, which is why he put food and shelter first, which is true as an individual. But I've never heard of anybody dying by suicide because they were hungry.

Right?

You die by suicide because you're lonely, which is the third thing up. But it seems more important than food, right? And so how selfish is it that we work to self actualization and we metaphorically, literally sit on. Well, not literally and metaphorically, but metaphorically sit on top of a pyramid looking down at all the unself actualized people. How selfish that we live a life so that we can get to the top of a pyramid as opposed to shared actualization. Like, how do we take as many people with us to find joy, love, fulfillment, safety? Come, let's go on that journey together to the top of the pyramid. Is that not my responsibility as a member of, of the, of the group? You know, to take as many people with me as possible to look out for them, you know, to take care of the weak ones and not let the strong ones get too ahead of themselves because we're part of a team. Oh, by the way, the thing that I'm describing is called leadership, but isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? You know, we have an entire section in the bookshop called self help, and we have no section in the bookshop called help others. And we have entire industries that are literally telling us how we can find happiness, how we can find love, how we can find the perfect job, and. And yet no one is teaching us how we can help our friends find love and how we can help our friends find the job of their dreams and how we can help our friends find happiness. And that is a skill set equal to the skill set of helping oneself. They have, they both have value. I'm not rejection, I'm not rejecting taking care of oneself, but I'm telling you that there's also another part of this equation. And I think that we've, we've overdone this one. And you see it reflected now. You know, even, even the way we've commercialized and made. We've miraculously made things like meditation and yoga. Selfish, right? How can I love it? I feel, I feel so, I feel so present, right? It's like I feel present now. Yes, there are absolutely benefits to meditation. We know the benefits of taking care of oneself and finding that mindfulness, right? We know all those social and Medical benefits. But the reason we practice meditation. Think about it. Meditation. As you sit still, you focus on one thing, whether it's a mantra or your breath or whatever it is, and you put everything else out of your mind. And if you have a thought, you label it a thought and you say, I'll deal with that later. And you find this incredible calm and peacefulness that comes. The reason we call it a practice is. Is so you can practice it for others, not just for yourself. Yes, we know the benefits to you. Have you ever taken that practice and given it to others? So when they're sitting there telling you their problems, that you're not just thinking of the thing that you want to say next. You're not just thinking how you can fix their problems. Or they tell you about their great day and you interrupt them and tell them about your great day. But rather because you've been practicing this mindfulness that you can sit completely quietly focused on one thing, and one thing only is what they're telling you. And if something goes bang over there, you actually don't turn your head because you're so focused.

And.

And you have a thought, you label it a thought and you put it out of your mind as I'll deal with it later. Because right now I'm focused on the person I'm with. At the end of that interaction, you will know you were present when they tell you you were. We are not present until someone tells us we are present. And they will say things like, thank you for listening. They will say things like, I feel heard. They will say, thank you for being present with me, holding space for me. Congratulations. All that hard work you've been doing meditating, was now also for the benefit of another. And what we also know is that the medical science on this, for all the benefits of mindfulness for oneself are multiplied by 10 when you do it for someone else.

By 10 service. Omar Branson talks about this. He has a. He. He specializes in gratitude, right?

Yes.

And. And he talks about the difference, the way he labels it as mindfulness versus heart. Heartfulness, you know, and. And he and I talked about how mindfulness is about me and I'm in my head, but heartfulness is about someone else. Right. And. And he has the data that there's 10x medical benefit to the service of mindfulness rather than the taking of mindfulness. It has benefit. And I'm not saying not do this. I'm saying also do this.

You know, I know this. I know the study you're talking about, it's actually it's in my, this book that I just wrote, but it's about gra. I say not service. I say the word gratitude because people think that if they journal in the gratitude, gratitude, they journal.

That that's having gratitude. But it's actually the act of like telling somebody thank you or sort of like basically turning it on its head to somebody else. The effects are like tenfold, which is, I think the same, is the same thing.

And in our fast paced, you know, social media world, I think we've conflated some of these human.

Practices and we've sort of, sort of mixed them up a little bit. You know, I. One of my favorites is people who put these beautiful posts on Instagram with them as babies being held by their dad. And you know, and it says, happy birthday dad, or Happy Father's Day dad. Your dad's not on Instagram. Like, who are you telling? Like, who said who? Like your dad. What did you call your dad? Like happy, you're the best sister, Happy siblings day. Did you, did you call your sibling? You know, I find that funny.

I find it so phony and bullshit is what I call it.

And, and, or, or that we talk about vulnerability when, you know, you talk about your breakup or the hard thing you're going through and you're sitting by yourself in your room talking to your phone. By the way, that may not be the first take, it might be the fourth take that I'm doing this because it was sort of, the lighting was bad and I put that on, I put that on TikTok and I say vulnerability for everyone to learn from. That's not vulnerability, that's broadcasting. Now go say those exact words to a person, which is way more difficult. And I think for us to practice true vulnerability, which is to sit with somebody, whether in pain or joy, which is to sit across from them, or to the very minimum, pick up the telephone versus a text and say, I just want you to know I love you and I care about you and you are one of my best friends and I will be there for you in thick and thin no matter what. And I know that you would be there for me. And I just want you to know how grateful I am for this friendship and for you.

Right?

Do that to somebody or sit in pain with them and saying, I'm struggling. You and I have had a fight and I'm up every night because of it. It hurts me and I don't know where it came from. The words you said to me the other day hurt me like a knife. Go say that to the person as opposed to broadcasting it. Because that doesn't actually, it gives you a salve. It makes you feel a little bit better for the few minutes you've done it.

Does it? Or is it more for the other people on social?

It has to have some benefits or a follow. I mean, that would be really cynical of us to say, but I, I, I have to believe it has something.

You're the optimist. I never said I was fair.

I'm still cynical, though.

Yeah, yeah.

The, you know.

There, of course there's some benefit, but the problem is it's a short term benefit. Whereas, you know, you and I both know that to get in the, with someone professionally, personally to get in the shit with someone, almost always you come out with clarity, better understanding, and usually a much better relationship. Almost always. You know, struggle is some of the best thing that can happen in a relationship.

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

I totally agree. I mean, do you spend, I mean, how much time do you spend on social media? You have a lot of followers and all that other jazz. Are you constantly looking at your phone? Are you constantly doing all that stuff? Like, what's your ratio?

Well, I mean, I have all my notifications turned off on my telephone except for texts and phone calls. I get zero notifications if I got an email. I get zero notifications if anybody posted or liked or anything on any social media ever, right? So I don't have that dopamine, you know, ding, ding, ding. I don't have it.

But like anyone, you know, I can go down a rabbit hole. If I'm feeling a little bit down or lonely, of course I go swipe, you know, swiping for, for goodness. And my goodness, the algorithm on Tick Tock. Oh my, you know, I'll just spend 10 minutes and two hours later, you.

Know, I tell me about this.

To me, there's some funny, talented Entertaining people. People out there.

Amazing.

And they're brilliant and wonderful. And that algorithm is astonishing.

It is astonishing.

It is astonishing. It is astonishing how good it is and how it just feeds me everything I want to see better than anything else. But I'm also fully. Like, I can't do it that often. Like, I know that if I open that Tik Tok app, I am fully aware that I am not in control of myself 100. I am. I am fully aware that time will evaporate. And. And I know that I'm gonna, like. Like, I'm gonna, like, sit in bed and like, then all of a sudden I'm gonna stop because I'm falling asleep and I realize it's one o' clock in the morning.

Totally.

So I know not to turn the app on. But. But it's. I would say that my social media interaction is mostly healthy only because I have all the notifications turned off. So I don't even know. I don't even. I don't even. The buttons, the count of how many emails you have. I have none on a little envelope on my phone.

Gosh, you're like, yeah, it's blank.

Not because I don't have emails. It's because I only find out if I'm like, oh, I think I'll check my email now. Open up the email app and I see all the new emails.

Oh, good.

So I don't. I don't have notifications turned on.

So you basically controlled your environment that way. So you know that you have a. That's. You're taking away the ability to kind of go down those.

And my phone is always. My. The ringer is always turned off. It doesn't even vibrate. So I literally don't know if anything's coming in unless I pick it up to look. So I don't have that. That dopamine thing I make a practice of when I'm out with friends that I put my phone on a. On a different seat. I put it out. I don't put it on a table. I put it out of reach. I can't see it on purpose. On purpose, on purpose because I understand the addictive qualities of the device. And so, you know, it's like the first thing you do with an alcoholic is you take all the alcohol out of the house. Because we just don't have that kind of willpower. It's not because they're weak. It's because none of us have that kind of willpower to resist. And so to think that we're so strong that we can resist the dopamine powers of, of our cell phones and social media. Just wrong.

Right.

You know, so, so I, I, I put it out of sight.

That's a good idea.

Or, or sometimes give it to my friend. Can you carry my phone for me? Do that a lot.

That's a great idea. Just because it's like, Because I, because we're living in that kind of world now, which is. That's why I don't know how we could. You know, we always find, like, you know, the pendulum swings, but because we're getting more and more addicted, because there's more platforms, like, every day, there's a new platform that comes up and a new thing that happens. Where do we come back to a place where we're like, kind of like, where, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago, we didn't have this type of, like, same addiction where there wasn't social media.

Well, I mean, there were other things to get addicted to.

What were we addicted to?

Alcohol.

People are still, people are still doing that. The fentanyl is being sold right now.

It's true. I'm just saying it's not like, like, it's not like the world was so, you know, let's not be Pollyanna. The world was perfect and nobody had any addictions. No, no, no, but you're, but you're right. I mean, the amount of. I think. Is it. I can't remember the statistic I just read recently. Was it deaths by alcohol or just. We all know the amount of drinking that went up during COVID skyrocketed, but I think deaths by alcohol have also gone up.

Did yours, like, what, did you, what.

Did you die from alcohol?

No, no, no, no, no. And when from COVID How did, did you tweak or modify your habits or your, your.