Leading with an Infinite Mind | Simon Sinek & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. We are back with bestselling author Simon Sinek, and last time we talked about living with the infinite mind. In this episode, we're gonna talk about leadership, because for me, when I think about leadership, I think about you and your amazing body of work.

Thank you.

And I wanna ask you this question: how do you lead with the infinite mind? Last episode, and I highly recommend people listen to that as a base, We talked about the 5 practices. So can we go deeper into the 5 practices and how they apply towards leadership?

Absolutely. So what I've learned is that the leaders that lead with an infinite mindset, in other words, they lead to advance something rather than simply just achieve. Achieve, yeah. There's 5 things. As I said, they work to advance a just cause, build trusting teams, study their worthy rivals, Have a capacity for existential flexibility, and they have the courage to lead. So a just cause is a cause so just we would be willing to sacrifice in order to advance it. Usually when there's a goal, you know, that's not really a just cause. I mean, I think you know people aren't willing to necessarily sacrifice you know their interests simply to make a goal. A just cause can be a vision so grand that we would willingly commit our effort, our energies in order to advance towards it.

How does that relate to start with why? How does that relate to purpose?

So I get this question a lot, like what's the difference between why and just cause? So why comes from the past. It is the sum total of how we were raised, the lessons we learned. It's who we are. We all only have one why, and it doesn't change. It's completely fixed. You are who you are, and your life is an opportunity to live in balance, to be authentic with who you truly are. That's what the why is. It comes from the past. It is objective. The just cause is about the future. It's about articulating a vision of an unknown future. It's about where we're going, not where we come from. The why is where we come from. The just cause is where we're going. The why is the foundation of who we are and what we do. The just cause gives our work and our life meaning. It's the context. Whereas the why is objective, the just cause is subjective. You can be whatever you want. I think a lot of people, especially young entrepreneurs, put a huge amount of pressure on themselves to, what's your vision? What's your vision? What's your just cause?

Yeah.

And the reality is, it's such a small percentage of our population, you know, a couple percent of people of people who are truly visionaries, that people have true vision of a future state that does not yet exist. It's your Elon Musks, your Richard Bransons, your Steve Jobses, the people we write all the books about. You know, they're visionaries. And I think we hold ourselves to an unfair standard to try and be like them. What's my vision? So I think it's an unfair standard to say, come up with a vision. However, it is totally legitimate to tell people to find a vision. So if a visionary has articulated a vision that you believe in, then you can commit your life, your business, your effort to help advance towards that vision. It can be religious, it can be business, it can be personal. You may hear a vision. We talked about Martin Luther King had a vision. You can make his vision your own.

Mm-hmm.

It is now my— it is now my vision. So if there's a vision out there of a leader that you admire and love, the question is, how do you commit your energy, your company, to advance that vision? So you don't have to come up with a vision, but you do have to find a vision. And when I talk about sacrificing in order to advance that just cause, it could mean turning down a better-paying job in order to stay here. It could mean working late hours or going on frequent business trips, which I don't like, but it feels worth it. It feels like I'm— this work that I'm doing has greater meaning. And I may not like every day at work, but I do get to love every day at work because I feel like my work Matters. This is what a just cause provides. It gives our work— it gives our work and our lives meaning beyond the products we sell and the money we make.

Hmm. And then the second practice?

The second practice is building trusting teams. As human beings, we are junk by ourselves. We're just not that smart, and we're just not that strong. But in teams, we're remarkable. We can solve incredible problems and lift huge weights when we work together. So building trusting teams is the commitment of a leader, and by leader I don't mean the person in charge, though that's good too, but I mean the person who takes responsibility for the people around them. You don't need a leadership position to be a leader.

Or title.

You don't need a title to be a leader. In fact, they have nothing to do with each other. One is formal authority, the other one is the commitment to see those around us rise. It's nice when they're in the same person. They don't have to be. So building trusting teams is about taking responsibility to create an environment in which trust can thrive. What does that mean? It means that we work in an environment where people feel safe to be vulnerable, safe to express weakness, which means we all know what it feels like. We've all been there. We all know what it feels like to be on a team where we can raise our hands and say, I made a mistake, or I'm struggling at home and it's affecting my work, or I don't I don't understand the job you've asked me to do, and I need somebody to explain it to me, or I need more training, or I'm scared, or I need help, without any fear of humiliation or retribution. In fact, we feel confident enough to say these things, to express this weakness, with the absolute confidence that our boss or our colleagues will rush in to support us.

And you wrote about this in Leaders Eat Last.

I wrote about it in both books, yeah. And if we don't have trusting teams, if we don't work on a trusting team, then we're showing up to work every day lying, hiding, and faking. We're hiding mistakes for fear that they'll put us at risk for the next round of layoffs or something. We're not gonna ever admit that we don't know what we're doing or we don't know how something works for fear of being humiliated. And we don't ask for help. And it works for a while, but eventually those things, all those cracks build up, and they take their toll on an organization, and indeed, they take their toll on our lives. So taking the responsibility to build trusting teams is an absolute essential part of playing with an infinite mindset, because it means that, that we're not the sole person responsible for advancing the just cause. There's a whole team committed to this, and we can take care of each other. And when we all retire and die, there's a whole new generation that we've been looking after that's gonna take over for us. Essential, absolutely essential in the infinite game. Worthy rival. You know, it's funny. There's another guy who does what we do, and and I just I'm like super competitive with him. Like I totally hate him, you know? And he's never he's always been very nice to me. I just I just I don't know what it is. And when I when I compare book rankings, I only compare his. I don't look at anybody else's, right? If he's ahead, I get angry, and if I'm ahead, I'm like smug. You know, we had an opportunity to. We were asked to speak on the same stage together. I don't mean like him in the morning, me in the afternoon. I mean we were interviewed together at the same time. And the interviewer thought it would be fun if we introduced each other. So I went first. And I turned to him on the stage— How'd that go? And I said, you make me really insecure. I said, all of your strengths are all of my weaknesses. And when your name comes up, I get really uncomfortable. And he looked at me and he said, funny, I feel the same about you. So the reason I had such a competitive energy with him, the reason I wanted to beat him, is— had nothing to do with him. It had to do with me.

Right.

It's because his strengths revealed to me my weaknesses, and it was so much easier for me to take all of that uncomfortable energy and direct it at him rather than take a hard look at myself and say, I got some work to do. It was a hugely cathartic experience. to have that conversation. I've never compared our book rankings since. Hmm. I actually don't compare my book rankings to anybody since that. We've become very close friends and really supportive of each other's work. And I recognize that we're much more powerful working as a team, 'cause we actually care about advancing the same cause. And it's allowed me to take a hard look at my weaknesses and work to become a better version of myself, rather than just try and undermine and beat him. So this concept of worthy rivalry, and you can have worthy rivals as an organization. Who are the other organizations that do a better job than you do? Maybe they have better leaders or better marketing or their products are better. To reflect back to you where you can improve. Or you can have individuals.

It's—

I think it's very dangerous inside organizations where leaders think it's smart to create internal competition. No, no, no, no, no, because then we're gonna undermine each other.

Right.

And hoard information instead of sharing information. That can't be good. But it is totally healthy to have rivals internally. We've all had the experience where someone on our team got promoted and we got angry. Think about that for a second. We got angry at someone else's good fortune.

Hmm.

What is that telling us about ourselves? Right? What is that person revealing in us?

Hmm.

So it's absolutely fine to have worthy rivals on our own team. We don't have to like them. We don't have to agree with them. But we have to admit that they do certain things better than us that make us insecure. And it helps us work on ourselves.

And it's inspiring too, because happy is the heart that rejoices in the joy and success of other people.

Of course.

Right? You can say it, but to actually come from that place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's a nicer way to show up in the world, which is it's an attitude of self-improvement rather than an attitude of trying to beat everybody who does what we do in a game that has no finish line, no standard metrics, and no standard timeframes. In other words, it's a fool's errand. Anybody can declare themselves number one if you pick the metrics, you know? The next one, the next practice is a capacity for existential flexibility. This one's a doozy.

Hmm.

I call it a capacity because there's some prerequisites. The existential flexibility is the ability to make a profound strategic shift in how you're, approaching something in order to advance your just cause. So it's the willingness to walk away from significant investment 'cause you find a better way to advance the just cause. This is not the daily flexibility we need to do work. This is not even—

Which could be important.

Which is definitely important. This is even bigger. And it's not shiny object syndrome that so many entrepreneurs have. The next flavor. The next flavor, the next shiny thing, which drives their people crazy. Existential flexibility is the kind of thing that most people will, may never have to do in their lives, or at most do once, twice at the absolute most. It's just, it's really rare and it doesn't happen. But the question is, do you have the capacity for it? And if you don't have to go through it, have you prepared your organization, your family, whoever, that they could go through it if they needed to? Have you been doing the hard work for them? And that hard work means establishing a just cause and building trusting teams.

Hmm.

The just cause is necessary because if we're gonna make a profound strategic shift, everybody has to understand that Why we're making it, and that this is the right reason, even though it's gonna hurt. And the trusting teams are, 'cause it's gonna hurt, and the short-term pain, we want everybody to hunker down and say, this is gonna suck, but it's the right thing to do, versus abandon ship or say you're crazy or sort of go into a cocoon.

So it's not necessarily easy, but this is something—

Oh, it's not easy at all.

What would be an example whereof existential flexibility?

So the best example, my favorite example, It's a known story. Steve Jobs and some of his senior executives in 1979 went to visit Xerox PARC. Now Apple has already had success from the Apple I and the Apple II. Apple's already a big company. Jobs is already a famous CEO. And Jobs, remember, has a just cause. He and Steve Wozniak wanted to create a world in which individuals were empowered to stand up to Big Brother. They imagined a world in which individuals could actually compete with a corporation Thanks to the personal computer. This is why they were drawn to the personal computer. They saw it as an individual empowerment tool. But that was always their filter, individual empowerment. And Jobs goes with his senior executives to Xerox, and Xerox shows them something they invented called the graphic user interface. Now, previous to that, to use a computer, you had to learn a complicated computer language. like DOS. This graphic user interface that Xerox invented allowed people to move a mouse, to move a cursor across a desktop, to click on icons and folders to work a computer. So Jobs sees this, recognizes the massive leap forward that this technology provides for individual empowerment, and he says to his executives, we have to invest in this graphic user interface thing. And one of the executives, the Voice of reason says, Steve, we can't. We can't simply walk away from what we've been doing. We've invested millions of dollars and countless man-hours. If we simply change strategic direction, we're going to blow up our own company. To which Jobs actually said, better we should blow it up than someone else. That decision led to the Macintosh, a computer operating system so profound that the entire software of Windows is designed to act like a Macintosh. The reason we all have a computer on our desks, the reason computers have become a household appliance, the reason that individuals today can actually compete with corporations is because of the ubiquity of computers and the power that a computer gives us because of this graphic user interface. It was his willingness to make this profound strategic shift at great difficulty to the company.

Yeah.

Not to mention walking away from money spent and hours invested, because it was the better thing to do to advance his cause, to advance the cause that the whole company shared. That's existential flexibility. Not easy.

And number 5, we're talking about courage?

Courage to lead. You know, everything we talk about, about embracing an infinite mindset, is really difficult. It's much easier to just set short-term goals and commit everything to short-term goals. You know, the people who think that long-term is just a series series of short-term. That's easier. It's exciting to set goals and win. If you look at building trusting teams, that's really hard work. It's so much easier to just hire and fire people willy-nilly. To have to invest time and energy in asking people how are they and actually care about the answer and worry about how someone feels about their job and how they feel about themselves and each other. Like, this is the job of parents, not of bosses, you know? It's hard work being a good leader inside a company to actually create an environment in which people feel safe to be themselves. That's effort.

Mm-hmm.

It's much easier not to do it. If you talk about worthy rival, competitors are much more exciting. You can beat them and you get these thrills when you're ahead. Worthy rivalry is being forced to look at ourselves and admit our weaknesses and then work on them. Ugh, whoever wants to do that? You know? And existential flexibility, for all the things we've already discussed, easier to just put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and wait it out. You know, let the next generation deal with it. We don't have to deal with it now. And if you think about how many decisions have been made in this and previous generations that have literally screwed up our world that are our problems now because they're done and retired. That's the avoidance of existential flexibility. So all of this stuff is really hard and requires unbelievable courage to do them all. So then it begs the question, where does courage come from?

Yeah.

So if I have to have courage, like, how do I find courage? I don't believe courage is an internal fortitude. I actually believe courage is external. You know, the reason you have the courage to jump out of an airplane is not because of some internal guts. It's because the parachute on your back, like the parachute on your back gave you the courage to jump, right? A world-famous trapeze artist would never try a brand new death-defying act for the first time without a net. It's the net that gave them the courage, and so it's the same with the rest of us, which is. Which is what gives us courage is the people in our lives. It's our friends. It's our colleagues. You know, when you doubt— when we doubt ourselves, when we're afraid, when we don't think we're strong enough, when we want to give up, when we do give up, it's a person in our lives who says, I'm here. I got your back.

And they encourage.

I believe in you. Yeah. And even if everything blows up, I'll still be here. That's what gives us courage. Courage is external. Courage comes from the relationships that we have. I know that I couldn't do most of what I do if it weren't for the amazing people who believe in me. Because I want to give up. I often want to give up. It's hard. And I could tell you a story, you know, of that. I mean, I think anybody who has put themselves out there, everybody thinks everything goes perfectly. But what they're missing is that there's people in our lives who love us and care about us desperately, which is why we have the strength to do what we do. But that's not unique to us, that's everybody. So it's essential that we take care of those around us. It's essential that we put ourselves out there and we are there for them, because why would anyone be there for us if they didn't think that we would be there for them?

So these are the 5 practices.

5 practices.

Let's review them really quick.

Advance a just cause, build trusting teams, study your worthy rivals, maintain a capacity for existential flexibility, and have the courage to lead.

Amazing. Simon, where can people get your book?

They can buy it wherever they like to buy books. You can steal it from your friend who may have already bought it. I mean, whatever floats your boat.

We're actually going to gift away a signed copy of The Infinite Game for As someone who's actually watching this. And to participate, I challenge you to take a screenshot of this video or of this podcast and tag Simon, tag myself, and share— I'm sure people have a story about these individual practices. So you sparked something, and so I would love for you to be able to share that story. And I will repost some of my favorites as always, and then we will gift and send the signed copy of The Infinite Game.

Awesome.

to, to one of our contestants. So thank you so much.

Thanks, Jim.

Such a pleasure.

Hi, Kwik Brain. It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this, because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number 2, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing, because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing. If you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: 310-299-9362. Did you remember that number? 310-299-9362. Shoot me a text and we'll stay in touch. Ask me your burning question. And I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of love, lots of laughter, and always— Lots of learning. I'll see you in our next video.