Simon Sinek: How Visionaries Produce Iconic Results

If you want to know how people like Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, and Simon Sinek became visionaries, then this video is for you.

That's something that you have to sort of steel yourself for, discipline and teach, um, uh, over time.

What is the truest, highest vision that you hold for yourself?

A vision is having a crystal clear sense of what the finish line looks like, but no idea of how far away it is.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. I started the One Rule series because I consume a ton of content, and in all of the top 10s that I do, I wanted to pull together some of the rules that came up over and over and over again and smush them into one video just for you guys. So today we're gonna learn how you can become a visionary. Enjoy!

I, uh, ask everybody to not think in 2 to 3 year time frames, but to think in 5 to 7 year time frames, to not think about when somebody says to me, congratulations Amazon on a good quarter, um, which is a very common thing to say. You meet somebody, they're being nice. They looked at your financial results for the quarter. They're like, good quarter. I say thank you, but what I'm thinking to myself is that quarter, all that, those quarterly results were actually pretty much fully baked about 3 years ago. And so like today, I'm working on, you know, a quarter that is gonna happen in 2020, not next quarter. Next quarter, for all practical purposes, is done already, and it's probably been done for a couple of years. And so if you start to think that way, it changes how you spend your time, how you plan, where you put your energy, and your ability to look around corners gets better. So many things improve if you can take a long-term, by the way, it's not natural for humans. So it's a discipline that you have to build. The kind of, you know, get rich slowly schemes are not big sellers on infomercials, you know. And so that's something that you have to sort of steel yourself for and discipline and teach. Over time.

What drives you to keep working so hard? You could, you know, you and I are in the 60s category, and so when you're in your 60s, you know, you've lived more than you're gonna live. Yeah, realistically. So when you realize you've lived more than you're gonna live, you can say, why not relax a little bit? Why not just ease up? Why have you decided to even work harder than you did before?

Because I think, David, that everybody, you know, the thing that works for me all these years, whether it was the magazine, or which I still have, or whether it was the the show, I could— I understood that there's a common denominator in the human experience. And I want the same thing you want, which is the same thing you want and you want. What we all want is to be able to live out the truest, highest expression of ourselves as a human being. That doesn't end until you take your last breath. What is the truest, highest vision that you hold for yourself? No matter where you are in your life, there's always the next level. There's always the next level to the last breath. So I feel that I always knew that I would be done with the show when I felt like, oh, I've said as much as I could say here on this platform. And then how will I be used? If there were a theme song to my life, Amazing Grace would be one of them, and Keep On Using Me Till You Use Me Up would be another one. You know that Bill Withers song?

Da-na-na, da-na-na-na-na.

I feel that until you have used your value as a human being, you're not done.

People are always talking about visions and missions and all of this stuff. And when people ask me, like, what example should I look to? Like, what company should I— I'm like, here's an organization with a vision, a cause. It was founded with a cause. It's an entrepreneurial venture.

It's—

America is an experiment. It's an entrepreneurial venture where a bunch of people got together and decided we needed to start our own country because there were certain obstacles that were getting in the way of a vision that we had of a better kind of country, but a kind of company, right? And they stated it right at the beginning. All men are created equal, endowed with these unalienable rights, amongst which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And it's not a— it's not just a competitive statement like to be the best, to be the most respected. That's not what it was. And I'm amazed how many companies start their visions or missions with those— that terribly egocentric language. It was an ideal. And the amazing thing is, is we've been good at it and bad at it in our history, but it's endured for 240-plus years because we fundamentally believe that we are at our best when we're pursuing that. But it is an ideal. We will never actually achieve all people are equal, but we will die trying. And that's the point. And it's the same for a company, which is true vision inside a company is something that has nothing to do with your product. It is an ideal to which you will attempt to build and advance that ideal through your company with your product. You'll never achieve the ideal, but you'll die trying. And this is what gives our work meaning. This is what gives our lives purpose, right? The difference between vision and a goal is the finish line. A goal is 26.2 miles. You can simply count the metrics and know when you've completed your goal. A vision is having a crystal clear sense of what the finish line looks like, but no idea of how far away it is.

Wow.

And it's— and the reality is you will spend your entire life never actually crossing the finish line, but the joy that every marathon you complete, you feel like you're getting closer. Every milestone that you accomplish makes you feel like you're getting closer and closer to the ideal, and this is what gives our life and our work meaning.

Most people have goals in life, and we would think you got to be goal-oriented. That's the first mistake. Yes, you need goals, but there is something far beyond goals, which is what all successful people have, and that's a vision. It's a vision for the future. See, here's what it is: you see things as they are, but not worse than they are. Yeah, which is what a lot of people do. Yeah, they say, oh, it's so terrible. They tell themselves it's a wild story about why they can't take action, and in truth, the story they tell themselves is exactly what holds them back from being successful. It's that bullshit story that stops them from acting. And they're like, oh, there's so many, the economy, and they play the blame game, they complain, they justify, and it stops them from moving forward. So see things as they are, not worse than they are, and then see them better than they are, and make them that way. Look at a Gandhi, right? He survived hunger strikes and united a country not because he had a goal for a free India. He had a vision of a free India. Nelson Mandela, all those years in jail, a vision.

Yeah.

Richard Branson, who's a friend of mine, who I know, he sponsors me, my speaking tour. He's a visionary. Bill Gates, they're all visionaries. And the best example, considering we're in Hollywood, is a guy like James Cameron. Now here's the trap. James Cameron is probably the greatest visionary of all time in filmmaking. Would you agree?

Yeah, I would.

He was interviewed on Diane Sawyer, and they asked him a question of What do you owe your success to? And what he said was this: I set really, really high goals, so even if I fall short, I'm still doing great. And people thought that was pretty profound, and I actually believe in that too. It's not true though. See, what's happening is this: James Cameron is not a goal setter, he's a visionary. He just doesn't realize because he's running unconscious strategy himself.

If you said—

if I said to James Cameron, is it really just the goals, or do you have a vision for Avatar? He'd say, oh, of course I will. And then he'd get all excited and he'd tell you how nothing was gonna stop him from making this movie. The fact that it took 10 years and ran $200 million over budget and he put money in himself, all— that's not what goal setters do. Goal setters will set a goal, it gets tough and they abandon it. And I can't overemphasize that distinction. That's number one is vision.

The first thing that you need to do is you start— you define what success looks like for you. And it's not $10 million in the bank, I'm sorry. It needs to be something Bigger, a bigger—

what if somebody says it is $10 million in the bank to me?

Well, yeah, I mean, the problem with saying it's $10 million in the bank is that when you finally get to the $10 million, typically those people feel pretty bankrupt because that's what you're seeing, and that's what you're seeing in your world. Absolutely, absolutely. And so, you know, once you define it for yourself, I think the key is how do you then trick yourself, Donnie, into feeling successful every single day? You know, I've got a daughter that plays lacrosse. She She's 9 years old. If I said to her, I'm only cheering for you when you score a goal, how do you think she'd feel during the game? She wouldn't play very well, that's for sure. So you've got to figure out how do you cheer for yourself and how do you feel successful while you're playing the game? Because it's not all about the goal.

Are there any tools to cheer for myself?

Give me a—

today, I want to feel better inside. I'm at home, I'm watching. I'm either somebody that's got the millions of dollars and it's not feeling good, or I don't have those millions of dollars and it's not feeling good. And I'm worried about the economy around me.

So give me the cheer for myself.

I know exactly what you need to do.

What you need to do is you have to decide, okay, this is where I'm going. I'm going for the big vision of what success is. Now do a head fake with yourself and say, okay, let's just say that I'm actually already there. I have the $10 million in the bank. I'm, you know, saving the world, whatever it is that your version of success is. What are 3 things that I would change about this day, today? How would I live it today if I already had all that stuff? What time would I wake up? Who's my first phone call to? What did I eat for breakfast? Start living as that success vision now.

Every genius entrepreneur has an eccentric vision. So, they're possibilitarians. They are the people who said, you know, well, here's the way the industry has always been, and here's the way the status quo is, but here's what we're gonna do. What's coming to the top of my mind right now as I record this is Uber. So you've got Travis Kalanick, And literally through that single app, I mean, they don't own any taxis, they don't own any cars, they don't really have any inventory. But through that single app, Uber disrupted the entire industry of that level of transportation. And so, you know, these people, these genius entrepreneurs come up with a ridiculously disruptive idea. That is absolutely eccentric in its vision. And that's why people call them crazy. And I'll simply say to you, if your vision is not routinely called crazy, then perhaps your vision isn't big enough and disruptive enough. And we change the world when we change the game.

Thomas Alva Edison once made a very nice statement. He said, genius Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. We may have an inspiration in our heart, that 1% strong burning inferno of an inspiration, but unless that inspiration is put into action, dedicated, committed hard work, that 99% perspiration, we are not going to be able to achieve what we want to achieve. And so also, when we talk about dealing with our bad habits, Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. We need that inspiration, but based on the foundation of that inspiration, we have to put in dedicated, committed hard work— that 99% perspiration. What's amazing is that 99% perspiration is based on the foundation of that 1% inspiration. If the foundation of a building is in place, the very first thing that we make when it comes to building a structure, a house, a beautiful edifice, or a mansion, is we put the foundation in place. If the foundation is in place, if it's strong and robust, then all the building blocks— the bricks, the cement, the mortar, the steel— can go on and form a beautiful structure for us to live in, for us to dwell in. And so also, that 1% inspiration is the foundation of that 99% perspiration. Imagine if you're very inspired to change, if you're very inspired to give up some of your bad habits, but you don't put that hard work, that 99% perspiration, what good is that inspiration? Or imagine if you keep putting 99% of perspiration, that hard work, that effort, the dedicated commitment, but if you don't have that inspiration to do it in the right direction and sustain it and get it a higher shelf life, what good is that hard work and perspiration? Therefore, success comes by a balance of the two. Inspiration, which acts as the foundation, and perspiration, which acts as the building blocks to build upon that foundation. I once read a very interesting, uh, Japanese proverb. It said, action without vision is a nightmare. If you simply keep acting without having the right vision, the result is a nightmare. And it said, "Vision without action is a daydream." If you simply have a vision and you don't act upon it, all you have as a result is a daydream. I have rephrased it for our discussion here today. Perspiration without inspiration is a nightmare. But inspiration without perspiration is a daydream.

You need to be insanely stubborn about the mission, insanely stubborn about the why you're doing things, but really flexible flexible about the how. And I think you need to have that stubbornness, especially as an entrepreneur, because when you're getting started, you're gonna get so much pushback, right? What you create, your product, your service, won't be really great at the start, and so it'll be hard to get people to buy from you. You'll have people around you, friends, family, coworkers, you know, people in your community telling you that it's not gonna work out. You're telling yourself that sometimes this is crazy, and it's not going to work out. And so everything around you is saying that this is crazy and that maybe it's not the smartest thing to do, right? Being an entrepreneur is rarely the smart thing to do. It might be the best thing to do, but what we do is we create a world that does not exist. Like, the best entrepreneurs have a vision for a world that they want to create that doesn't exist yet. So from a practical perspective, it doesn't make sense. Like, we're doing something that has never been done before. You guys need to be doing something that has never been done before, right? Like, you can model some success, but at some point you have to find your own path. And when you go and create your own path, it's not practical, it's not logical, because it doesn't exist yet. You have to go and create it. And so you need to have that stubbornness for the mission, for the vision, for what end objective you're trying to create, because of all of the pushback and negativity and zero progress you're going to make at the beginning. If you don't have that stubbornness, if you aren't willing to say no, this is going to work out to yourself and to the people around you who are naysayers, then you're going to quit, which most entrepreneurs end up doing. They, they quit. They don't have enough stubbornness for where they want to go. The flexibility, though, is about how you go and accomplish it. I want to make this world better. Here's how I want it to look like. Here's Here's what I want to change in the industry. But how you go and do it should be flexible. And this is where I think too many entrepreneurs are too stubborn. It has to be this specific way and this way only. So you spend all this time making this perfect plan, right? The perfectionist. You want to make this perfect plan, and you're— all your time is working on this plan. This is exactly how it's going to play out. No matter how much planning you do, it's never going to go according to that plan. Every successful business, look at how they started. It's not how they started that led them to their ultimate success. Sometimes it's a radical shift in their plan, sometimes it's a minor shift in their plan, but it always has to change. Just look at any company. Look at how they started. Look at Starbucks. They started selling just beans. You couldn't get coffee going into a Starbucks. They would only sell you the beans. BMW started selling airplanes. That's why their logo is an airplane propeller. You know, Wrigley's, the gum company, started selling other household products, and gum was just used as a giveaway, that if you buy X packs of this other product, we'll give you some gum. And eventually became the gum company, right? It's like, it changes so often, and too many entrepreneurs are stuck on that it has to be this specific way. And if you're not listening to the market, if you're not combining what you love with what the market wants, you're never going to get to the success that you're after. And so that in insane stubbornness for the vision, but total flexibility for how you accomplish it, that's what's really important as an entrepreneur.

What you say in the book is that development begins when you have the first vision of what you can be, correct?

Exactly.

You can't write a movie unless you know what the movie's supposed to be about. That's what development is. Sometimes we get so frustrated in our lives, but we have to go back and say, "Wait a minute, do I understand what the big idea of my life is supposed to be?" If my life is a story, then I have to know the point of my story. And sometimes what happens when we start developing a movie, the producers may have one vision of what the movie's supposed to be, and the studio has another version. And then the movie becomes nothing because there's not clarity of idea. So with our life, we have to have clarity of what we're supposed to do. What do we believe we're called to do in this life? And in that way, it gives our whole development process more shape.

Now I've got a special bonus clip with Lewis Howes on how to be a visionary. But before getting to that, the question of the day I have for you is, what is your big vision for your company? What is it that you want to build? What is your vision? Leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon and enjoy the bonus.

The first one that most people come to me is they don't have a clear vision of what they want. They want a better life, they want to make more money, they want to have a better relationship, but they're not clear. And the greatest minds and the greatest achievers are very specific and clear on their vision. It's so certain to them what it is, they can see it, they can feel it, they can taste it. And as an athlete, I used to visualize how I wanted to create my sport. I wanted to create myself in sports, and vision was very powerful for me back then, as it is now for business world. So the first thing is vision that people need to get clear on. Started with vision. In sports, we always start each season with a clear vision on the chalkboard in the locker room. What are we looking to achieve this season? Do we want to make the playoffs? Do we want to win the championship? We're always very clear. It's written up on the board. Every day we walk in the locker room, we see our vision. We know what we're working towards. So for me, I have a board with my vision, and every day I look at it, and I'm very clear and specific about what it is, when it's going to happen, each 6 months to a year, each season of my life. So I just try to translate all that I learned as an athlete, because that's all I knew, into life, and, um, it's helped me get to at least where I'm at currently.

So let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy.

The most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon. Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.