How to Measure a Person's Character | Simon Sinek

How do you measure patience? How do you measure, you know, things that are more of our character.

Yes. The attributes show up. So attributes are more inherent to our nature. Okay. We're pretty much born with them. All of us have all the attributes. It just depends on what level of adaptability we have. They are, they inform our behavior. They show us how we're going to show up to a situation. My patience, my resiliency, my adaptability will show how I'm going to learn how.

To fight a bike. It's all qualitative. It's all qualitative.

It's qualitative, but it's also it's environment. Right. Uncertainty, challenges, challenge and stress. Where. Where you can't apply unknown skills. Skills, direct behavior for a known situation. Uncertain.

Say that again slowly. That's good.

Skills, direct behavior for known situations.

Skills direct behavior for a known situation.

Right. Here's how to ride a bike. Here's how to drive a car.

Okay, and now the other part.

When you get into an unknown, uncertain situation, skills don't apply. Right. We lean on our attributes. Okay.

This is what I love. Because this is finite and infinite games.

That's exactly right.

Because a finite player likes to train and prepare so that there's no such thing as unknown. Because finite minded players fear the unknown. They fear uncertainty. And so they practice, practice, practice, practice. This is athletes, this is military practice, practice, practice so that you're prepared for any eventuality. And as Dr. Karst explained to me, at the time of something uncertain or unknown, the thinking has already been done. The thinking. But the problem is, the problem is that works for expected things.

That's exactly right. That's exactly. And how many of us throw the.

Finite player into a tizzy where the infinite minded player embraces uncertainty? And as Dr. Cars explained to me, where finite thinking, the thinking happened in the past, it's now muscle memory.

Right.

I didn't have to think, I just relied on my training. You hear it all the time. Where the infinite minded thinker at the time of uncertainty or the time something goes completely haywire, now the thinking begins and this is what you're saying, which is skills are good for finite mindedness, but building these attributes is really what it takes to build an infinite mindset.

And a trusted team. When we talk about trusted team, we talk about high performing teams. Okay? High performing teams aren't just good when things are going great. The truest high performing teams are great when things go south and sideways. And I've seen it all the time and it was kind of what the idea for the book was dream teams, right? I get business people saying, hey, I just built this dream team. Best salespeople, top graduates, all these skills, right measurables. But they're toxic. The team's toxic. And when things went to hell, we all fell apart. And I said, because you were looking at the wrong things. You need to look at attributes. You need to look at things like adaptability, patience, situation awareness. Those things that we lean on in uncertainty. That's what starts building the trust. Because trust, after all, is our behaviors. You know, it's like you and I. Trust is not just a feeling. You know, trust is more than just a feeling. It's a belief. A feeling is just a human emotion, justified or no human emotion. That's all it is. A belief is a human emotion, justified and rationalized. Doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, it just matter that it has been. So it's a belief. You can't make anybody trust you. All you can do is behave in a way that allows them to make a decision to trust you. And that's what you have to do in trusted teams.

You're my philosopher, warrior friend.