Conscious Business | Fred Kofman | Talks at Google

Fred tells his own story of his own life far better than I can. So I'm gonna let him tell it. I'm just gonna share with you how I met Fred because it's such a fun story. So I think some people know this. My husband works at Yahoo, where he runs the music business. We kind of deal with that as we have for many years. And for those of you who don't know my husband, which is most of you, he's not a touchy feely kind of guy. Like the least touchy feely kind of guy in the entire world. Yahoo has management leadership training. Management training. And my husband just refused to go for two years. Refused to go, refused to go, refused to go. And finally they called him and said, listen, like everyone at the VP level at Yahoo has gone through this program and you must go through this program. Like, you must go, you must go. So my husband deals with this by for a Monday and Tuesday and he spends the entire weekend complaining about this. The entire weekend. Leadership training, two days. This is ridiculous. So he's in a terrible mood. He comes back the first night and I said, so how was it? And he says, it's really interesting. That's all he says. I was like, well, how do you feel about spending a whole other day tomorrow? And he says, you know, I'm okay about it. So then the next day he comes and he goes Tuesday. And he comes back and I'm like, so how was it? He goes, it was really good. And then he starts quoting this guy Fred. He's like quoting him. Like we have an argument, he quotes him. Well, what you really mean is this. Well, Fred would say that. And so a couple days into Fred land, which has invaded my home, I got his phone number and I left a message on his phone. I don't know what you do, but I want you to come do it for my team. And so my direct reports, my group of managers at Google and I, the directors, had a session with Fred and that was well over a year ago. And since then we've been rolling out the programs. He and some of his team are with him here today too throughout the online sales organization globally. And we are also, they're starting to work with some other groups at Google. I will say the following about this, that I think most management and leadership kind of official training is not that helpful at best. And that's been the experience I've had through my career. This has been entirely different that the kind of lessons Fred has taught me and taught our team and starting to Teach throughout Google are things that I think make a difference not just at work, but in your life. And for me, it's changed how I thought about work in a really profound way. So I'm thrilled to have this opportunity for this crowd and for the crowd watching the video for Fred to share his wisdom directly with us as part of his tour on his new book. So welcome to Fred.

It's a great pleasure to be here with you. And I'd like to take about half hour to present some ideas, perhaps spark your imagination, and then after that make it very interactive. The most interesting part of any seminar is really not what I say, but what happens in the interaction where nobody knows what is going to be said. So I'd like to invite you really to think as I'm presenting these notions, what questions, what challenges, what ways you can engage with it. And then we'll have the second half hour to really go into that kind of unknown land together. I have to acknowledge also that this last year of working with Sheryl and her organization has been very inspirational for me. I'm very, very grateful for that. And I would love to condense everything that I've learned working with Google in one year in this half hour to present the material to you. I will be very dispersed. I'm not going to give you a power session like that because you all have to book. And the goal of this time is to create enough enthusiasm for you to say, I'd like to check this out and see what the book says. And there are things that are logically ordered. So I will not be, I will not try to tell you about the book. I will make this so. Let me start with a paradox that I faced many times in my life as I was growing up. And I always heard that as a human being and a professional, I had two options. I had to set out the earth to be successful. I had to leave what I really cared about on the side and just, you know, go Stella. I wanted to study philosophy and my parents wanted me to study economics. So we compromised and I studied economics. You want to have a future, you have to be on the deferred life platter. So before you realize, just do what needs to do, build a background, and then you can do what you want. Another term I teach is to teach accounting at mit. Finally, I ended up teaching accounting. That's a different story. And when I was in mit, I started doing what the students describe as the weirdest accounting course in the universe, because I was helping people think about the accounting as a Mercury Student. On the. So on the one hand, there's this principle. If you want to be successful, you have to sell out. Don't hold on to your dreams. Postpone them, let them go. On the other hand, there are the people that say, and both share the same mental model. It's the same idea, just the two sides. On the other hand is if you really want to have a life, if you want to live your life, you have to drop out, Just let it go. Commit to yourself and. And then forget about big business and all that, because the people that work there have sold their souls. So if you want to keep your soul, you can't work there. You can't do that. Just go to the Himalayas, start a meditative practice, do yoga seven hours a day. Just eat raw foods. That's kind of the spiritual path. So you can go spiritual or you can go material, and the twine shall never meet. They go in different directions. Well, the reason I had to write the book is to absolutely fight against that and to prove that it is totally possible to act in a business in perfect alignment with your values. In fact, the way to build value is to come from your heart to actually express in your practice whatever it is. It could be theater, it could be opera, or it could be management. But whatever your practice is, whatever the way in which you engage with the world becomes the vehicle for you to express what's truly dear to you, what's most important to you. And that's the fundamental idea. It is possible to integrate. You don't have to sell out to be successful, and you don't have to drop out to be in alignment with your. Or to express your soul or your spirit at work. Now, that is a nice idea, but the question is, how do you do it? What does it take to actually bring this into practice? And I say, well, it takes consciousness. That's why the name is conscious business. Consciousness as the ability to be aware, to connect what's meaningful to you, what you want, the way you want to live your life, the reality that you experience in the world, and the intelligence to engage with the world from the perspective of your values. That's what I mean by consciousness. So doing conscious business is standing in the world, taking a stance. So let me give you an example of how this operates. Let's do a very quick exercise just to engage your imagination. Think of some character you admire just very quickly. Some person. It could be a historical character, a real person that lived, could be alive now. Or it could be some character from a novel or A film. So I don't know. Just let me take the Dalai Lama. I went to see the Dalai Lama last Sunday. Yesterday, it was in Denver, and I went to see his talk. So just. I'll use him as an example. You choose in your mind. You choose one. But then ask yourselves, what is it in this character that I truly admire? What makes this character admirable to me? So when I think of the Dalai Lama is his. I'd say his compassion. The Dalai Lama is supposed to be the incarnation of compassion, kindness and compassion. And when he. I remember when he walked out yesterday, it was like this wave. The whole room melted. It was this. I mean, it wasn't him. It was what he evoked in people. His presence created, like everybody reflecting, what do I want to do in my life? So think in your character, whoever it is, whatever leader or character you thought, what quality do you admire in this character? And then think, how did you observe this quality? So where did you see your character demonstrate that? So, for example, talking about the Dalai Lama, say he talked about the Chinese and how difficult it was to engage in a constructive dialogue with them and the pain around that and so on. So that's an example where I observed. So just those three things. Who is your character admirable, what quality you admire, and how have they demonstrated this quality in the world? How do you know that they are like that? I will just take one minute, just very, very quickly. I'll ask you to turn to your partner, somebody next to you, sitting next to you, and simply just let them know who it is. Just say verbally who it is that you admire, who it is, what do you admire? And when did you see them or what did you see in them? To show this, we'll just take 30 seconds each person. It's a very quick engagement. So go ahead. One minute. Okay, let me call you back, please. So just briefly, I'd like to know what qualities. I mean, we can just. You can just say them out loud. What qualities did you find admirable in the characters you thought of? Can you say them out loud? Leadership, honesty. Combination of high performance with humble, humble humility. High performance, humility, perseverance, intelligence, principle, sacrifice, passion, creativity. Okay, any of the things that has been said, can you find any of these that are contradictory with a way of doing business? Can you imagine doing business passionately, creatively, humbly, with leadership? Is it possible? Yeah, I mean, is that the way people do it? No, but that's the big opportunity. In general, people don't think of business as an arena to express their values. They think, oh, but there's a trade off, because if I act humbly, I get stepped on, or if I show my passion, somebody's going to destroy me. And there's a lot of fear that if I truly put out what's dear to me, it can get hurt. And it's true. I mean, the more you expose yourself, the more you care about what you do, the more dangerous it becomes. So there's a matter of conscious choices. How do you want to live your life? But it's a bad excuse to say it cannot be done in business. It can be done in business. It takes a commitment to see business as an area for expression. Why would you do it as a hobby and not do it in the main part of your life? One thing that shocks me is when people talk about the life, work, balance. So life or work? So the implicit assumption is that when you're working, you're not living. And when you're living, you have to be out of work, because you have to balance these two things. If you work all the time, then you're not living. But think, how much time do you spend at work? How much of your awake time is spent working? So what happens if all that time that you're working is not time where you feel fully alive? You say, oh, no, no. When I meditate, I'm full, fully alive. How much do you meditate? I don't know, an hour a day maybe. Most people don't meditate more than. I mean, if that. Maybe five minutes a day. So if that's when you're alive, well, it's pretty sad. So what would it take to be fully alive? As you face the challenges of work, there are ways in which you can do this that will help you express your passion with skills. So those are the two things. The first thing I invite people to do is to connect with the music they have in their heart. And that's what we've done in this very little exercise. I'm not telling you what values you need to espouse, but you say, what do I admire in other people? And one of the things that Socrates said, the Greek philosopher, more than 2,000 years ago, one of the secrets of a good life is you have to put yourself in the list of people you admire. That's what it means to live a good life. If you put yourself in that list of admirable characters. When you look at your behavior, you feel, I am in that category. You're living a good life. If you don't put yourself in that list, you need to look because happiness is inherently correlated with the level of self admiration that you have grounded. Self admiration. Not like, I'm great, it's not egomania, it's admiration because I have done things, things that ennoble me. So that's finding the music in your heart. And then the second is, well, how do you express this music skillfully? How do you learn? I mean, if we were talking about piano, you have the music in your heart. Well, then it's like, what are the finger exercises that will allow you to have the dexterity so that music you can translate from your mind into the world and in business? Well, you also need some finger exercises, some practices, and there are several practices that I describe in the book that take this passion and bring it to the level of practical realization that you need in order to produce results. So let me tell you four of those. I'll do it very quickly. But just four essential practices in the book. I put seven. The first one I call unconditional responsibility. An unconditional responsibility is, is having an attitude of whatever the world brings to me, it is my opportunity to respond. So it would be like the world moves and then it says, now it's your move. And then after you move, the world responds and it's your move again. And every time something happens, it's like, how am I going to choose to respond to this situation? In my experience, when people are in business, they feel overwhelmed. So look what happened to me. And when you are in a perspective of, oh, I'm a victim of circumstance that is automatically self disempowering. So think of something difficult that happened to you. I mean, it could be a traffic jam. It could be, you know, somebody mistreated you or somebody forced you to do something you didn't want to do. I mean, there are all sorts of events daily that create this sense of, oh, look what happened to me. Now, without denying that those things happen, I mean, traffic jams are there. This is not about everything is rosy. Now ask yourself, how could I respond to this situation in a way that expresses my admirable quality? Think again. How could I respond to. So if you said humility, for example, or creativity or passion. So here's a traffic jam. What would it mean to respond to the traffic jam with creativity? What would it mean to respond with passion? You got a request for a time that you think you cannot meet. So somebody says, I need this by tomorrow. And you look at this and say, there's no way I can finish this by tomorrow. What does it mean to act with honesty in that moment? And you know that if you say I don't think I can do it, something potentially bad can come your way. But if you say I do it, you're lying because you don't think you can do it. One of the things I want you to realize is that all the things people said, leadership, passion, humility, creativity, strength, perseverance, they are all qualities that do not depend on an outcome. Let me say this again, because this is the essence of unconditional responsibility is the understanding that what ennobles you is the way of responding, seeking the result, but not having to achieve the result. Success is not one of the things that ennobles you because success doesn't depend on you alone. You try to succeed. But your poise, your attitude is the full expression of what's ennobling to you. So think about that. You see that none of the things people said require success. Not only that, let's take perseverance. So suppose that you are committed to express perseverance in your life. You want to live a life that exemplifies perseverance. What kind of situations are going to give you the right theater, the right scenario, the stage to show world class perseverance? What do you need? Failure. I mean, this is shocking because when you fail and you don't understand this, what you say is oh shit, I failed. And this is terrible. But when you understand this, you say, oh fertilizer, I fail. Now notice that. I mean, it's the same situation. This is not like airy fairy, it's a different world. Everything's going to be ok. No, no, no, it's not going to be okay. But the difference is what kind of resilience do you have when some bad thing happens? When you're faced with a challenge, nothing happens to you. There are only challenges. And the only question is how do you respond to this challenge? How do you unconditionally use any challenge to express the values that you have committed to express in your life? This makes a huge difference when you're in action. It gives you a strength that goes beyond anything people know. Now this is not modern management theory. This idea of unconditional responsibility to express your values in the face of difficult situations comes from the beginning of time. Human beings have been confronted by difficult situations, constant, always. I was talking before this talk with someone whose family comes from India. And a source of great wisdom from India is the Bhagavad Gita. It's a very famous sacred book that is really a dialogue between a master teacher, Krishna, an envoy, perhaps, of the gods, as is portrayed in the book, and Arjuna, who's a general who's about to call a civil war, and he's about to start a civil war. That's terrible. People are going to die by the tens of thousands. It's all his family on both sides. It's really a situation where you say, this is really screwed. This is as bad as it gets. And the book is a discourse. How do you walk into those situations? I don't know if you've ever been in a situation in Google where you say, my God, this is horrible. I mean, there's no way this can work. Look, this is a terrible mess. Well, how do you walk into that? How do you use this idea of expressing my passion and unconditional responsibility to walk into that? Well, the first thing that Krishna tells Arjuna is don't worry about the outcome. You cannot focus on the outcome, because if you're thinking on the outcome, you're forgetting what to do. Now your mind is stuck in the future. You're not paying attention to what is the next step. If you look at the bushido, the samurai code, they say the same. If when you're fighting, you're afraid of dying, you're thinking, I need to win, you're already dead. There's no way you can fight because your mind is not there, so you can't be present. So it's like, let go of the outcome. You know that that's what you're trying to do, but don't stay thinking on that because you can't make it happen. It depends on too many factors. So you do your best to align your energy with your purpose and the object of your action, which is to get that result. And the second is devote every action to the highest values. In the book, it says, devote every action to me, but to me as the expression of value. And it's basically the same message. It's saying, don't worry so much about am I going to succeed or am I going to fail? Try to succeed. But I call it the spiritual hardness. The thing you rely on, or while you try to succeed, is even if I don't, I can look in the mirror and say, I honor myself. I treat other people with respect. I acted with passion, with creativity, with leadership, with humility. And that does not depend on anybody else. That's why I call it unconditional success. Depends on other people. Other people can block you from succeeding, but your integrity doesn't depend on anybody, it's yours. And that's always possible to win. So that's the first practice. It's like facing life, particularly management life or business life, with that attitude of serving the values that I'm committed my life to. And then there are three very practical things. Once you decide that, how do you do it? Well, the first is with authentic communication, speaking your truth, and eliciting other people's truths. I pose in the seminars, I pose the following dilemma. I'm not going to resolve it because I want to leave time open for us to engage. The first dilemma is if you want to be honest. Several people say, honesty is a value. I want to be respectful. I imagine most people. If I say, how many people want to be respectful, everybody will raise their hand. It's a great value. So here's the dilemma. How can you be honest and respectful when you think that the person that is presenting is an idiot? So let's say you think I'm an idiot now. You're like, oh, my God, this is total bullshit. Nothing works. It can't work. So you think that. So I say, well, what do you think? And you're like, well, I want to be polite. I'm not going to tell this guy that. But on the other hand, if I say, you know, this is really interesting, that's a lie. You don't find it really interesting. So you may be in a meeting and somebody puts a proposal and say, you think, that never worked. It's crazy. But you can't raise your hand and say, that never work. It's crazy. So you might say, hmm, well, let's think about it. And you don't want to think about it because you think it's crazy. So how can you be honest and respectful in that situation? I mean, that is absolutely practical. We face the situation 100 times a day. Or a client calls you and the client is complaining, you're crazy. I mean, you're wrong. This is not the way it is. But if you tell that to a client, it's not going to go very well. I can guarantee. On the other hand, if you say, oh, yes, yes, yes. Well, you feel like it's demeaning because that's not true. How do you put these two things together? Well, there's a secret ingredient to put these two things together. I give you the punch line. If you want to know the technique, it's in the book. And the secret ingredient is humility. So how can you be honest and respectful is you have to stop thinking that your view of the world is true. And you have to recognize that it's simply your perspective. So when I think, let me just do a quick poll. How many idiots you know that think exactly like you? Okay, so work together. I found a perfect correlation between idiots and people that don't think like I do.

Now.

I tended to think they are idiots. That's why they don't think like me. That's the order of causality. And then when I started reflecting, I said, you know, maybe it's the other way around. Maybe they don't think like me. I'm upset and that's why I call them idiots. But they're not idiots. They're just people that don't think like me. It's a major shift perception. That's a major shift in consciousness. So I'll give you just a quick story of Jean Piaget and then we'll move to the other two. Jean Piaget was a developmental psychologist and he used to do this experiment with three year old kids. He would give them a cube and he put the cube in the middle. One side of the cube was red, the other side was green. So he would let the child play, familiarize himself or herself with the cube. And then he put the cube on the table so that he was seeing the green side and the child was seeing the red side. And then he'd ask the child, what color do you see? And the child would say, correctly. A three year old would say red. And then Piaget would say, what color do you think I see? A 3 year old would always say red. Because developmentally a 3 year old does not have the capacity to take another person's perspective. So if I see red, the world is red and you got to see red. Well, I know a lot of people in companies that have more than 30 years of experience in being three. They're not 33, they just practice being three for more than 30 years. So, you know, if I see red, it is red. And if you don't see red, there's something wrong with you. So that's the lack of humility. So the way to be authentic and respectful at the same time is to understand that your perspective is not the truth. And that makes a huge impact when you are having conversations and disagreements. Once you elicit the other person's truth, you express your truth. How do you resolve conflicts, differences in views in a constructive manner? That's the next practice and the final practice is how do you translate that agreement into effective action? So I'll finish with a little riddle from Children, there are five frogs sitting on a log. Four decide to jump down. How many are left on the log? Just take a guess. One. Okay. No, five. Why? Because they decided, but they never did it. Have you been in management meetings where a lot of decisions get made and then there's still five frogs on the logs three months later? So there's a shift in perspective from making decisions to making promises and feeling bound by my own integrity to fulfill my promise. And that's a managerial practice. So instead of telling people what to do, you elicit their commitment and you engage their integrity. Now, that takes a whole set of principles about asking people, letting them respond, letting them engage with you and negotiate. So when there's a commitment, you're eliciting their internal commitment. You're not forcing them or using your authority to make them do something. So those are four of the seven practices, four key ones. Unconditional responsibility, authentic communication, constructive negotiation. And I call it impeccable coordination. Impeccable commitments. When people adopt this, I call this. These are the finger exercises, the techniques that allow you to take the music, the values that you have in your heart, and translate them into service. Because I finish with this. What is capitalism? I love capitalism because it's the system that transforms greed into service. How do you make money? How do you get people to pay for what you offer? Well, you have to give them something that's valuable enough that they will want to part with their money because they think their life is enhanced more by having what you're offering them than by keeping their money. That's true in any voluntary transaction. So if I pay you, let's say, X dollars for a service, your service is worth to me more than X dollars. It's not the same. This is a mistake Aristotle made. Aristotle was saying, a fair price is a price where value equals price. It's not true. In the market, value always exceeds price. Not always. I mean, there's a boundary condition, but almost always. I pay you $10 for it. I wouldn't be willing to pay 15, but it only costs 10. So I only pay 10. For example, my company, we pay Google. So when there's a search and we bid, and you know how it works. I guess I don't have to explain it to you. But why do we pay? It's not because we're nice and want to give the money to you. We're paying because what we get out of that is more valuable to our lives and our company than what it cost. So you're not making money because you're greedy. I mean, maybe you're greedy, but the way the market transforms that greed is if you want to make a lot of money, you have to give me a lot of service. And the more service you give me, the more money I will be willing to pay. So I find that incredibly spiritual. It's the ultimate spiritual commitment I'm going to be in business to enhance the lives of everybody that connects with me as a user, as a customer, as an employee, as a leader, as a colleague. And what I hope my book will do, or the teaching or the work I've done with Google so far is to create this consciousness that it is fully possible to be here, to be a manager, to be a leader, and use that as an arena to bring some goodness into the world. You see, I always wanted to be the Dalai Lama, but the job is already taken. So do this. Thank you very much. So I guess now we have some questions or comments or challenges. I heard this is a very challenging culture, so looking forward to that. Yes, please. I think if you use the mic, people will hear you. Will you mind? Thank you very much. So this is a company that I truly love, and I have a great deal of passion for this company, and I am very glad to hear somebody talking about values. And you used a lot of words that are very important to me, like authentic and integrity and so on. So thank you. I'm a little curious. I love this company a little bit. I'm so close to it that I'm not maybe sure how other people perceive it. And I'm a little bit interested in how you have perceived this company as you come here to work with us. Thank you. Well, first I'll say how. So I'll start by answering how I perceive the company as I came, and then my experience with the company. But the first thing I felt is incredible pride to be associated with a company that's at the edge of creating a new way of thinking. My interpretation of the Internet is that 600 years from now, people will look at this time like Gutenberg's time. Something happened that changed consciousness. The way people think, the way people learn, the way people interact will be changed by this phenomenon that's happening now. I believe 500 years from now, we'll see. And, well, you guys are there. I mean, you're creating new ways of using the Internet, of expanding knowledge, of democratizing, if you will, the access to information. So I would say that that is almost more important than any experience I've had inside the company. The passion, the goal to have other people be able to use a medium that's capable of transforming human consciousness is phenomenal. And the commitment to do it with no evil, the commitment to do it, doing good to the world is very touching. So that was my first approach. When Sheryl called, he was like, I don't know anything about Google. I just know some of the things they say and the name. And it's very. So I'm very proud. And I feel that inside the company. What I felt is, and I can say mostly Sheryl, because I've been working with Sheryl's group is this amazing commitment to make that real. And dealing with the complexities and the challenges of a very fast paced growing company. A lot of engineering challenges to negotiate with, human challenges, trying to bring those together. So it's easy. What I see is that it's easy. Easy in the day to day, frantic pace to lose sight and connection with that broader vision. So my experience has been inside a lot of problems, a lot of dealing with situations that are normal in any business. But that's the thing that surprised me, that they're like normal. This is not a normal company. I mean, the vision of this company is tremendous. But yet inside the company, people work like, you know, this is. I mean, it's a cool company, don't get me wrong. And people understand it's very cool. And there's a lot of free food and wonderful things, great cafeterias. But there's. I don't see as much, at least I didn't receive as much as I expected. The pride of people saying, wow, you know, what we're doing is amazing. It's changed, it gets talked about. But then when problems happen, the problem becomes a bit overwhelming and people lose that perspective. So those are the things. And I see that as a great opportunity, the idea to connect, that the challenges are not bad things. I mean, it's the fertilizer. It's like, okay, if we were not trying to do something amazing, it wouldn't be difficult. So there's. In Spanish, I come from Argentina and it's a beautiful poem from a Spanish author, Antonio Machado. It says, ha noche mien tras dormia. Last night as I sleeping, Sonie vendita y lucion. I'll say it first in Spanish. In English, that means last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt blessed illusion that I had a beehive inside my heart and the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey out of old bitterness and failure. Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt Blessed illusion that it was God that I had inside my heart. So this idea of the golden bees and whatever happens, whatever problem, you can transform, transform into the bitterness, you can transform into white crumbs and sweet honey. That is, I think, the key missing piece to connect with the broader vision and say, yes, we're trying to do something amazingly difficult and that ennobles us. That's what I would say. Yes. Thank you.

So let's say you go into a negotiation or business meeting and what you will eventually be evaluated on is whether or not you, you know, win or get the outcome that you want. And let's say your manager wasn't here today, not mine is. So I'm fine. But you know, and you, and you say it's not outcome based and you sort of act throughout the process as you would with dignity and so on. So how would you handle a situation like that?

Thank you. Thank you very much. So. When you go into a negotiation, the first thing I want to say is you will try to win. Now, you won't try to win at any cost. So when someone says, I'll do anything to win, I start shaking. I'll do anything to win is Enron. I'll do anything to win is Saddam Hussein. I'll do anything to win is no boundaries, no ethical constraints to whatever you need to do, you do. But the only thing that matters is to get the result. That is always, always for the hundred thousand year of humanity. There is always the road to perdition. I'll do anything to win. That's the road to hell. And every religion, every tradition, every piece of wisdom will tell you that. So I don't think you would do that. So if I say, well, why don't you? I mean, let's say, you know, competitors. So why don't you put a contract, just have the mafia kill your competitors. And some people say, no, no, no, we can't do that. I say, why? Well, we might get caught. Well, that's dangerous. That's dangerous because then everything becomes a business opportunity. It's like, oh well, if we couldn't, if something gave you indemnity or immunity, then you do anything. And that's scary. So we don't want that. We are saying, I will do only those things that are in alignment with our values to win within those constraints. I'll do everything to win, but within those constraints. So for me it's essential at the beginning to have a conversation. What are those constraints? What is the how? How do we want to live together? How do we Want to treat each other, how do we want to engage with the customers? And within that, how I'll do the best, but I will not play dirty. I will not lie to you, I will not threaten you. I will not go behind your back to talk to your manager to undermine you. So then I win. In the negotiation, there are a few things, many things, not a few, that I will just not do. So let's say those constraints, and as you say, well, it's good that your manager is here. He or she may be liking it, or he or she thinking this is crazy, but she won't say it because it's not polite. So the first thing is, how do we want to live? And if you break the how, you're in big trouble, because this is serious. This is our culture. This is the way we respect ourselves. Within the how part of the house is excellence. We'll do the best we can. And if you fail, if you keep failing, there will be consequences. It's the real world. So you're not going to get promoted or you may lose your job. There's no promise that. Well, when I was a kid, I remember I would come home or I'd be home and I did something bad and my mom came and I would say to my mom, if you promise not to get upset, I'll tell you something. And she'd say, what? I said, no, no, you have to promise first not to get upset. So I wanted an insurance that if I tell the truth, nothing bad can happen to me. I want immunity. You know, when you're four, it's okay. When you're 44, it's a problem. So one of the difference between being 4 and 44 is that you don't long for immunity. You take responsibility. So if you are not able to cut it and you cannot produce the result operating within the values, maybe you're the wrong person for the job and you have to move. So there's no promise that you're going to be successful at the end. And this is the Buddha's realization. That's how it all started in Buddhism. He was a prince and he realized, literally, he realized, if everything goes really, really well, I'm going to get old, I'm going to get sick, and I'm going to die, and that's as good as it gets. So what does it matter? I have all this power and all this money. If at the end I'm going to get old, I'm going to get sick and I'm going to die, and that's the plight of every human being. How can you find a philosophy that is death proof that allows me to smile, literally. How can you be happy in a reality when you know things collapse? Everything is transient and it's not the outcome because the last outcome in your life is that you're going to die. That's the last outcome, practically. So what is a death proof philosophy? You don't seek a philosophy that ensures you always win. No philosophy can do that. But there's a philosophy that will say I will ennoble myself always and I can guarantee that even if I lose. And within those boundaries I'll do the best to win, but there's no immunity. So maybe your manager in Google will say, sorry, you don't cut it. And if you are failing, you say, I'm really sorry, it broke my heart and I agree I'm not competent enough to finish or to do this job. And then you see, okay, what do we do next? So it's not like la la la land, oh, everything goes well, don't worry. No, I mean you might lose your job, it's fine. But you have to choose what's more important, success or integrity? If someone say you can keep your job but you have to lie or you can keep, you can raise the stock value, but you have to defraud the investors. I mean a lot of people choose and many of them are not caught. So I'm not even saying God will punish you, you know, if you, the SEC is going to catch you and whatever. No, I mean most people just get away with it maybe. But when you look in the mirror, what do you see? Are you proud of what you see and what you all said When I asked you what would make you proud? What do you admire? Not a single person said success. And I asked you, now you remember, you're the quote, greedy capitalist who, who are working for big business. And not a single person said success. You said things like respect, integrity, honor or honesty, creativity, passion. That doesn't depend on the outcome. But there's no guarantee that by working passionately you're going to get the outcome you want. That's as good as it gets. Thank you. I think somebody else. Did you have your hand up? You did have your hand up. But I mean you still want to. I repeat the question. It's okay, you can sit. Yes, very good. So the question or the challenge was much of this talk is about you and your own values. What happens if you work with other people that don't share your values or are they anti values they betray these values. The reason why I start with the person, with the individual, is that ultimately what defines your sense of self esteem is your behavior, not how other people behave towards you. I mentioned Socrates. Socrates, the Greeks had this idea of the transmigration of the soul, that there was a soul and the soul took life in multiple bodies over time. And Socrates believed, and Plato and Aristotle, all these Greeks believed, that it's much worse for the soul to commit a crime than to be the victim of a crime. So if you had to choose, it would be a lot less damaging to your soul to experience hardship because other people are unfair than to inflict hardship on others in an unfair way. Now, that's a kind of old ancient Greek philosophy, but you can think in your life. And for me, this was not an academic question. I lived in Argentina during the time of what's called the Dirty War. And the Dirty War was a military government after a coup, fighting against terrorists. So this was in 1976. It started 76. It went all the way to 82 when Argentina lost. Well, the military lost the war. Argentina won the war of the Falklands. So I say Argentina won because after the military loss, they had to leave. And we've had a democracy since. And during that time there were concentration camps, torture, murder, and then all these things started coming up and they were in the media in 1982. I came to the States in 1980. So I was seeing it and I really had to think. And I invite you to consider. Suppose you had to choose whether being tortured or being a torturer. I mean, thank God I wasn't in those positions. I was young enough. But if someone said, you are going to have to choose, which way would you go? Would you rather be hurt, tortured, or would you rather be a torturer? And you're going to survive either way, what do you think is going to scar you more? What kind of life would you like to have afterwards? And as much as I am afraid of pain, I mean, I can guarantee I'm pretty afraid of pain. I would much rather be tortured than being the torturer. So why I focus so much on the person, the best is if you can create a community. And that's the ideal. So as a leader, you select people, you train people, you engage people, and you have a lot of ways to instill the discipline. But ultimately, ultimately at the end of the road, when everything else fails is do you want to play fair or you want to win above anything? And my choice in life is to play fair. A lot of people say that's bullshit. I want to win. Okay, don't work with me. It's fine. I mean, the world is big. There are a lot of consultants, a lot of teachers will find a teacher that says win at any cost. I don't believe that. So if you are unfair with me. I'm not going to be unfair with you. However, just let me compliment. What I teach is something I call verbal aikido. And verbal aikido is a martial art studied in Japan, which means the art of creating harmony in opposing energies. AI is harmony, Ki is energy, and do is path. So the path or the art of creating harmony in opposing energies. In aikido, there are no attacks, there are no punches. The only thing you do is when someone attacks you, you use their energy kind of in a spiral. And you try not to help them not get too hurt. Because you know, if you don't oppose it, but you redirect the energy, then it. I mean, it basically you can have them flying. Steven Seagal. The first movies of Steven Seagal are. He used aikido. And you will see that in the first movie, he never makes the first move, so he'll taunt the bad guy. So he's like, okay, hit me. And when the other guy tried to hit me, then the guy started flying. But there's no kicking, no punching. Then he introduced that. But in the first movies, it was just responding. So it's not a matter of being stupid and saying, oh, I'm virtuous. Torture me. No, no, no. It's like, okay, I'm going to play fair. But if I. I mean, we don't have time, but we could do a role play, a dramatization where I say, okay, attack me. Say something horrible. And then you work with that. And it is shocking how much power you have by not opposing and exposing that. So I won't do the role play, but I recommend a video, a movie. My book. At the end of the book, there's set of movies that I recommend. There's a movie that absolutely illustrates this. It's 12 Angry Men, a movie with Henry Fonda, 1956, black and white, classic movie. And you see in that movie, I mean, it's brutal. There are people just pounding on it. Why? It's a jury trying to determine if someone is innocent or guilty of a murder. And it's really vicious, some of the attacks. And the way he responds is totally cool, but totally exposing the viciousness of the attack. And in that exposure, it gets deflected. So it's not just living your values, but it's doing that skillfully. The word skillful means to live your values because you don't serve anybody. Letting bad guys win. So I don't believe in collapsing in front of bad guys, but I also don't believe in behaving against them with the same unconsciousness that they behave towards me. So that's the. And I suggest you look at the book. And I also suggest you see that movie. It's a powerful demonstration. Well, I want to be conscious of the time. We said an hour. We're almost an hour. It's two minutes to the hour. I want to thank you very, very much. And thank you so much, Sherry, for the invitation. It.