Courage and Care | Simon Sinek

Some of the people who are the warmest, most vulnerable people I know are folks in the military. I mean, they're combat veterans, they're warriors, and yet I've hugged more people in uniform than I ever have in suits. I've cried with more people in uniform, never cried with anybody in a suit. And it's because it's such an, combat is such an intimate, an horrible experience that the bonds of love— I mean love— are really intense. There's very few combat suicides, very, very few. When they come home and they lose that connection and they lose the support network, that's when the suicides happen. Or it's the kid who doesn't get deployed and all his buddies go and he's left driving the bus on base, and that feeling of worthlessness, and he loses again that connection. And it was— I learned this lesson. It happened a couple years ago. A good friend of mine, in uniform, still active duty, combat veteran, we just were catching up and, you know, nothing in particular, just talking for an hour. And we got off the phone and he said something to me he's never said to me before. He said, "I love you." Not "lovya," not "love you." "I love you." and I remember, I remember how it felt. It hit me very hard.

Um, why, why did it hit you hard?

Very, very intimate thing for, for a man to say to another man. And I was so touched by it, I tried it out on a couple of other friends. I have one friend who, lovely guy, generous beyond, you know, super generous. If you'd met him, you wouldn't describe him as warm, but lovely guy. And, uh, you know, he's, you know, when I say nice things to me. He's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." He says, like, you know, brushes me off kind of thing. And I remember I saw him and I was saying goodbye, and I looked him in the eye and I said, "I love you," to say goodbye. And I watched him go like that, you know? And I didn't think anything of it. And the next time I saw him, I said it again, like, saying goodbye. It was a few months later. I said, "I love you." And he said, "I love you too." He said it back. And when he hugged me, He hugged me like I was his son. You know, it was, uh, it was amazing. And I— our friendship now is more intimate and, and more open because I took the risk to tell him a feeling.