The Rarest Kind of Friendship | Simon Sinek

18 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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1:23

In this monologue, Simon Sinek emphasizes the importance of having at least one person in our lives who can "hold space" for us during our darkest moments—when we feel depressed or angry—providing non‑judgmental support. He then contrasts this with the rarity of people we can call on to celebrate our achievements without jealousy, noting that true celebration requires trust and the ability to feel pride in another’s success as if they were our own child. Sinek argues that celebrating oneself is essential for confidence and that leaders should encourage their children, colleagues, and team members to acknowledge their own accomplishments. He distinguishes a healthy ego—confidence in one’s abilities—from an unhealthy ego, which becomes arrogance and a belief of superiority over others. The overall message is a call to foster relationships and cultures where space is held, achievements are celebrated, and ego is kept balanced.

Chapters

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, 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. 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. I think it's important to celebrate yourself. It's one of the things that gives us confidence, right? To say, "I did okay. I did good." 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.