Transforming Work and Life | Full Conversation

Hello, everyone. Coming to you all, like Kara said, from beautiful Los Angeles, California, I think we can all agree it has been an absolutely fantastic morning. And now we have a time and an opportunity for a really special keynote guest. We have the opportunity to hear from optimist and global bestselling author, Simon Sinek. Simon has devoted his life to advance a vision in which the vast majority of people wake up feeling inspired, safe and fulfilled by the work that they do. Simon is known for bestselling books including Start with why Leaders Eat Last and the Infinite Game. You may have heard his podcast A Bit of Optimism or seen his TED talk on the concept of why, which has over 60 million views. Wow. Simon, thank you so much for being with us today. We are super excited to have you.

Thanks for having me.

Yes. All right, audience, to everyone out there, I have a few questions pre planned for Simon to get us kicked off and started in this Fireside chat, but if you'd like, we'd love for you to jump in to our chat function and I'll ask Simon those questions that you guys have. All right, Simon, you ready?

Ready.

All right. 60 million views on your TED talk is super impressive. So tell us the why behind how you started this philosophy, what your journey was, and what brought you to the content concept of why.

It's a very personal story. And quite frankly, it started out of pain. I lost my passion for my work, but superficially, things were good. So I was actually quite embarrassed about saying to people, oh, I don't want to go to work anymore, because everything looked fine. And so I kept those feelings to myself. And if anybody has ever been in a bad place, you know, if you keep those feelings to yourself, they grow. And that's what happened to me. And it wasn't until a dear friend of mine came to me and said, something's wrong, something's off. And having that safe container, that safe space, I came clean. It lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. And all that energy that went into lying, hiding and faking could go into finding a solution. The solution that I found was this thing called the why. I knew what I did, I knew how I did it, but I didn't know why I was doing what I was doing. And the ability to articulate my why not only restored my passion to new levels, but the ability to help other people find their why gave me a renewed sense of purpose. And so that's what I sort of set my life and career to do.

It's absolutely amazing and special. So thank you for sharing that piece we look forward to digging in a little bit more with it as well. And you mentioned this just a minute ago, and that was around passion. And you've been quoted as saying, working hard for something we do not care about is called stress. But yet working hard for something we love is called passion. So what are the some of the maybe key principles that someone can apply to their life to make that transition from stress to passion?

I think we misunderstand what passion is. We think of it as an input. You know, it's like we only hire passionate people. Well, how do you know that they're passionate for interviewing, not so passionate for working. You know, passion is an output, not an input. It's something we feel when we are working in something we love and care about. Passion is what we feel when we work with people who we care for and care about us. It's got nothing to do with how many hours we work or how hard we work or the stress we feel feel it's to do with whether all of that feels worth it if I feel fulfilled by all of that. So passion is definitely an output, which is why it's so important to understand our why it's why it's so important to contribute to the culture that we're working in. Because we want to give to the people we work with, not just take from them. We want to work in cooperation with the people. All of that contributes to that magical feeling of passion.

Absolutely. And it gives that community feel and peace to it as well. Exactly. Thank you. Well, we'll take it to Simon. Some of the chat functions and the questions that the team has. And the first one comes in from Angela Monticello, and that is, Simon. What is the biggest challenge facing the business world today? And do you have any advice in overcoming it?

I think the biggest challenge we have today, it's sort of twofold. One is Covid definitely took us away from working together. And if camaraderie and community and all of these things matter so much to human beings, it's becoming really, really difficult for us to find that community. I think a lot of companies don't realize that working remotely and building community and trust actually requires more work, not less work. It's not just like, you know, think of it like school. You can't just have a 50 minute class and repeat, you know, all the time.

And expect kids to learn as easily. You've got to change the way it works.

It's the same thing here. So, and we think about community. Do people have the skills? Do they have the human skills to build that community, to build those relationships. Things like active listening, things like how to have an effective confrontation. Things like.

How to give and receive feedback. These are absolutely necessary skills that we aren't learning. So I think companies have a huge opportunity to teach people those skills.

Absolutely. That's super exciting to hear. And yes, yes, agree. So we have one from Dustin Harms, and that is what fulfills you.

So, I mean, I'm gonna sound like a broken record.

That's okay.

But the things. There's a couple things. One is I love working in teams. I love working with people. And the feeling of accomplishing something with somebody is, for me, the best. So relationship really matters. And the other thing is I'm a sucker for people who serve those who serve others. I can be brought to tears when I hear stories of somebody who sacrificed themselves, their interests, for the good of others. So meeting those people who give and serve in work or in life, I love that. That really feeds me. Oh, good.

Thank you for sharing that. Absolutely. Another question, Simon, from Samuel 10 Brink. And that is, how do you deal negative thoughts?

You allow them to happen. I think we sort of. We sort of. We think we have to be positive all the time. We don't. I mean, human beings are feelings. I mean, human beings have feelings, you know, I guess that's good. Like, we are feelings. Human beings have feelings, and we can't deny those feelings. If you're sad, be sad. Allow yourself to be sad. If you're. If you're angry, allow yourself to be angry. But just label it, I'm sad, I'm angry. And I think where it becomes dangerous is when we try and suppress it and pretend that we don't have those things because we have to be happy all those things all the time. But allow yourself to be human, I think, is the most important thing. And just be honest with yourself about how you feel.

Yeah. And does that then enable you to kind of move past it a little bit faster or process it as you kind of acknowledge it?

The simple answer is yes.

Sort of. Going back to my own story, the more one tries to suppress negativity, the more it feeds on itself. It's like a valve. When you let it out, it releases the pressure, most importantly, to let it out to another human being. You know, I think we live in this world where, you know, people stand by themselves. Too many people stand by themselves in their rooms with their phones and make a video for TikTok and say how they're feeling. But you're in a room by yourself talking to a piece of technology, you know, you're not actually talking to a person. But to have that exact same conversation with another human being where you're looking them in the eye is actually much more difficult, even if you were to say the exact same words. And I think there's awesome power in being able to share how you honestly feel with others and that others have the skill set to hold that space, not try and fix anything. And I think that's the mistake we make when our friends come to us. We try and fix, don't fix, just hold space. And yeah, that's a magical thing when you do. It. Takes courage. Takes courage, but it's a magical thing.

Absolutely. It's special. Yes. So another question, Simon, from Shelley Bunner. How do you keep a conversation positive when those around you are negative?

So it happens a lot, and I sometimes I point it out. I'm like, what's making you so negative? I never say, why so negative? Because it's ironically, the question why? Is actually, it's an emotional question. It can be perceived as aggressive. I'm like, what's making you so negative? Like, there's a lot of good things happening here. I want to know more. So replacing your judgment with curiosity is one part. The other thing is to just allow them to feel that way. So it's like, oh, yeah, I hear you acknowledging the negativity and then sort of moving on. But I also find that being focused on where the future is is important. And by the way, not all negativity is bad.

People who are sometimes very often criticized at work because they're always pointing out the problems. And you hear bosses say, don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. Like, well, if I knew the solution, I wouldn't be coming to you. You know, I mean, there's two types of negative Nelli's, you know, there's one that is always negative and offers no solution and stands on the sidelines. We have. I don't need those people in an organization, but the people who constantly bring problems, but they're willing to roll up their sleeves and try and find a solution. Those people are extremely valuable inside an organization because they're helping us see things, cover our blind spots that we're not seeing, and they're willing to roll up their sleeves. So not all negativity is bad. It's what we do with that afterwards. Are we willing to work together or willing to just sort of lean back and lean out?

Absolutely. Well, it also kind of reminds me, too, around, you know, you said the word why. Right. So not pressing into that, it might be not the right one to say. So how do you then ensure that you're kind of teeing it up correctly? Because if it's not all negative and holding that space, are there any other kind of tips to ensure that? You can call it out, be blunt, but yet process it well together.

I mean, again.

It'S not about judgment. It's about allowing somebody to be negative. But at the same time, we want to redirect. Right, right. And like I said, I'll say it, I'll say it. I don't know what's making you negative. Tell me more. We in our company have a rule which is if the reaction is above a 5, it's about something else. You know, it's like, why did you leave the fridge open? It's like, clearly not about the fridge.

Right, right.

You always leave the fridge open. Okay. Do not react about the fridge. Sure, sure.

Absolutely.

So it's the same thing. We find that in work. Like, people sometimes get very amped up about something, and you sort of pay attention like that.