Transcript of a Talks at Google conversation (Gear Up event) featuring Simon Sinek, moderated by Alex Rushin. Sinek recounts his personal journey to discovering his 'why' (originating from his 2009 TEDx talk), explains the concept of a single, authenticity-rooted 'why', and offers a practical 'friends exercise' to help individuals rediscover purpose during change or uncertainty.
Chapters
Please welcome to the stage Alex Rushin.
Hello. Hello, Googlers. Good to see you. My name is Alex Rushin. I'm a cloud engineering manager based here in the Seattle area. And I'm excited to be here today to help moderate today's Gear up event brought to you by the Google School. In partnership with Talks at Google.
I'm excited to introduce today's speaker, Simon Sinek. Simon may be best known for popularizing the concept of why described in his first TED talk in 2009, and his interview on Millennials in the Workplace, which broke the Internet in 2016 and led to Simon being YouTube's fifth most searched term in the year 2017. Described as a visionary thinker with a rare intellectual, Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision for the world that does not yet exist. A world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired and feeling safe wherever they are, to end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Apologize. I'm a little nervous. I'm not going to lie.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
Simon is an unshakeable optimist who believes in the bright future and our ability to build it together. So Google, please help me welcome Simon Sinek.
Thank you for being here, Simon.
Well, Simon, we are so glad to have you here. Thank you for spending time with us today.
Oh, thanks for having me.
Absolutely. To get us kicked off, I'd like to ask you about your first ted talk in 2009. Start with why. That was 15 years ago. Start with why. How great leaders can inspire action. Can you walk us a little bit about what that was like? What was that journey, getting to that TED Talk to deliver that message?
So people ask me, how long did it take you to write the talk? Or how long did it take me to write the book? And my answer is every day of my life up until that day.
My work is semi autobiographical, and the journey of the why is entirely based in my own personal journey of completely losing my passion for my own work. I had a good job. I made an okay living. I did, you know, had great clients, but I fell out of love with my own work and I kept it to myself, mainly because I was embarrassed. And if you've ever been in a dark place and if you don't tell anybody about it, turns out it gets darker. And that's exactly what happened to me way back when. And it wasn't until a very, very dear friend of mine came to me and said, something's wrong. And I came clean and admitted what I was going through, and it was a huge weight off my shoulders. And so the journey I went on was to try and reclaim my passion. And that's when I discovered there was a confluence of events. But the short version is I discovered that I knew what I did and I knew how I did it, but I didn't know why. And it's based on the biology of human decision making. So I had to know why I do what I do. And making money is not a getting promoted is not a why. That's why. Those are results. And so I went on this journey to find my why. But more important, I learned how to help other people find theirs. And I helped my friends find their whys. And they found renewed love for their own work. Some of them started their own businesses. Then they would invite me to share it with their friends, and I would help people find their why for a hundred bucks on the side.
And then word just sort of kind of spread. Everything was organic until I got an invitation to. To do the TEDx talk up here in Puget Sound.
Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that with me. In your work, you emphasize the importance of knowing one's why, but. And you just mentioned that you'd gone through this yourself. How can individuals discover or in most cases, rediscover their own purpose, especially during periods of change or uncertainty?
Yeah. So one of the.
We only have one why. We are the products of our upbringing. You and I are. Who we are is based on how we were raised, Experiences we had as kids, our parents, our teachers. Right. That's made us those things, made us who we are. And there's no changing who you are. And the rest of our lives offer us opportunities to make decisions that are either consistent with who we truly are or not. We call it authenticity. We know what it feels like when we make those decisions. We have inspiration. We have passion. We have flow. We also know what it feels like to be out of balance. You know, I've done this a hundred times. Why am I not enjoying it anymore? You know.
And so one way you can. There's many ways to do it. You know, I've wrote a book called Find you'd why we offer tools on our website. But I'll tell you one fun way to do it. It's called a friends exercise. And anyone can do this. Find a friend you love and who loves you. Do not do this with a spouse. Do not do this with a sibling. Do not do this with a parent. Those relationships are too close. Do it with A best friend, somebody who you could call at 3 o' clock in the morning, you know, they take your call or they call you at 3 o' clock in the morning. You would definitely take their call and ask them the simple question, why are we friends? And they're going to look at you like you're insane. Because the part of the brain that controls feelings like love and loyalty doesn't control language. We struggle to put our feelings into language. I mean, this is, it's an age old human problem. And they're going to look at you like you're insane. And then you actually stop asking the question why? And you say, come on, what specifically is it about me that I know you'd be there for me no matter what. And they're going to hem and haw. They're going to be like, I don't know.
I can count on you, you're always there for me. And you have to play devil's advocate. Good. That's the definition of a friend. What specifically is it about me that I know you'd be there for me no matter what. And you're going to go through a few rounds of this. They're going to hate you, don't help them, don't let anybody else help them. And eventually they'll give up. And eventually they'll start describing themselves. And this is what my friend said to me. My friend said, look, Simon, I don't know. All I know.
