The Kind of Friend Everyone Needs | Simon Sinek

10 Apr 2026 · 2 min

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2:03

In this talk, Simon Sinek emphasizes the importance of having at least one person in our lives who can "hold space" for us during our darkest moments—someone we can call when we are depressed, angry, or need to vent. He observes that most people have many contacts they can call with problems but far fewer they can call to share personal achievements. Sinek links this imbalance to trust and the ability to celebrate others without jealousy. He shares a conversation with a successful friend who feels he has no one to share his successes with, highlighting how self‑celebration fuels confidence. Sinek argues that we should encourage children, colleagues, and those we lead to be comfortable acknowledging their own accomplishments. He distinguishes a healthy ego (the belief that you are good) from an unhealthy ego or arrogance (the belief that you are better than others), and stresses that a full range of emotions, including pride, is essential for a healthy human being.

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I hope everybody has somebody in their life, at least one person, hopefully more, that in your darkest times when you're depressed, when you're angry, when you need to vent, when you need to just get something off your chest, when you're not at your best, that you can call somebody and they can hold space for you. Like, I hope we have— I hope everybody has at least one of those people in their lives, right? What I found amazing is the number of people that we have in our lives that we can call to brag and say how great we are and I did something amazing is an even smaller number. Think about that for a second. I can call more people with my problems than I can call to say, "I'm amazing." And why? And I think it's because— and it goes to this thing of trust, right? Which is to hold space for someone who's doing well and have no jealousy and have no envy, but to celebrate them like you're their parent. The pride, that is even more difficult. And I was talking to a friend of mine, great human being who's very successful, and I was telling him this observation that I've made. And he looks at me, goes, "Yeah, I have no one." He's done well in his life and he keeps it all a secret to himself. He never gets to say, "I made it big today." I think it's important to celebrate yourself. It's one of the things that gives us confidence. Themselves, right, to say, I did okay, I did good. Because don't we want our kids to be able to celebrate themselves? Don't we want our colleagues to celebrate themselves? The people who we're leading, don't we want them to be able to be excited about their accomplishments so we can say, you did this, you're amazing? Like, we want our kids to be able to be okay with that. We don't want them to brag. We don't want them to think they're better than other people. You know, a healthy ego is the belief that you're good. An unhealthy ego, arrogance, is the belief that you're better than others. Yeah. And like I said, I think a healthy human being has a range of emotions, and denying yourself the opportunity to express them is missing out.