Simon Sinek: The Dangerous Myth of Online Vulnerability & Rethinking Capitalism

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One of the things I love about you is how intelligent you are and also vulnerable you are. And I think that's a rare combination because usually people lean one way or the other, but you're really great at mixing both of them.

Oh, thank you.

And I wanted to ask you a question that I think has been an interesting conversation, specifically in the last 3 to 6 months. That includes relationships, work, AI, and leadership.

Okay.

There's been a lot of, in my opinion, distractions over the last few years of all the new shiny things that come out that are available for us at work, at home, and in relationships. And I'm curious, with everything that you've seen in the last few years, all the different distractions that have come out in life, where do you see intimacy and relationships personally and also professionally in the workplace as AI starts to evolve in everywhere?

So Let's just take one step back. The concept of AI is not new. It's an algorithm. Right? And our lives since the early days of the internet have been governed by algorithms.

Yes.

Right? What's an algorithm? Let's start there.

Yeah.

Right? We talk about algorithms every day. It's in our vernacular, but what is it? An algorithm is very simply a set of instructions, mathematical or computer code. It's a set of instructions. That's all it is. So a recipe is an algorithm. 2 eggs, cup of milk, some flour. What you get is that. And so the algorithm, the set of instructions is Lewis went on Amazon and bought this, Show him that. That's all it is. It's a list of instructions to solve a problem or to generate some sort of result. And so there's been artificial intelligence around us for a long time. If you go back to the early days of Ask Jeeves, which was pre-Google, didn't work very well. And you had to write in full sentences. And so Google was invented, it's a different algorithm that worked a different way. That you could put in less information and you could get the thing that you're more likely to be looking for. And the goal was always that you'd find what you're looking for on the first page. Remember back in the early days, you'd sometimes have to scroll a few pages. So they're constantly improving these lists of instructions and tell the computer what to do with a certain input. I think the thing that's new is the generative AI, where the machine can sort of A, it sounds like Star Trek. It's like it speaks in normal language that you don't have to type in Google. Google's a language. You type in the keywords you want. You don't have to speak in complete sentences, but now you talk to another human being and it tells you what you want. But it's still based on existing information. The thing that scares me about AI is the thing that I think scares everybody about generative AI, and this is the speed at which this algorithm could work and the speed at which it can invent things.

And is that something to be scared about or more excited about?

Both. The answer is both. And I think anybody who comes on one side or the other of the equation is missing the point. You know, there's a cost for everything and for all the benefits of anything in our lives, there's always a cost. You want to make a lot of money. That's your drive. You know, you want to get rich and become a millionaire. Okay, there's a cost for the money you make. You're going to sacrifice relationships, you're going to sacrifice sleep, you're going to sacrifice your health. Who knows what it is? Right. But you're going to pay for that in some way, shape, or form. It's a balanced equation. Right. So the more fantastic the benefits of any technology, the, the balanced equation has to be considered. Interesting. Is it worth all the benefits if it's going to cost this much? Right. And we're looking at climate change now and industrialization, like all the benefits industrialization, was it worth the cost? I think some of us would have preferred to maybe scale back some of that. And not deal with what we're dealing with now. So I think we have to do a cost analysis, which is I want this, but at what cost? I want this, but at the cost of undermining a democracy? Oh, that seems like a steep cost for something to write a book for me. I'm not sure. And at least as it exists now, it's useless for original thoughts. So people ask me all the time, are you scared of it? I'm like, absolutely not. Not scared of it at all. Because if you ask AI to write a book in the style of Simon Sinek on any subject, it can only draw from what I've already written, but it can't give a new thought.

Doesn't bring new perspective.

There's no new ideas. It will do some things that I think are really interesting. It'll change the balance of jobs. So for example, if you work in public relations or if you are even a scriptwriter, whatever it is, there is fear of AI, of course. Again, can't do new ideas, but a lot of ideas are not new.

Steal like an artist, repackage it.

But let's take a PR company, for example. It takes a lot of time to write that first draft, and you need a good writer to write a first draft. What'll happen with AI is, AI can write the shit first draft instantaneously. So in my world in writing, you know this from writing a book, the writer's the hero, the editor's like the hired help. Right? That'll switch, which not for new ideas, but for ideas that don't require novelty.

Sure.

Write a press release that has 4 bullet points that talks about the benefits. Right. The editors will become the heroes because the AI can write. First trip. So I think that balance will change. But to go back to your original question, to go back to your original question, one of the conversations that's not happening about any of this, we're not talking at all about social ripples. And there are always social ripples, right? And there's a blindness. People are blind when it comes to how we talk about new things. And when I talk about social ripples, what I mean is fear. Fear is an emotion. It is sometimes irrational, not always, sometimes irrational. And it can produce behaviors that can be antisocial. If you're afraid enough, you can hurt someone. You can hurt them with your words. You can hurt them with your actions based on fear. We've all said things in relationships out of fear. So let's take an analogy. A bunch of do-gooders come into a town in Ohio, coal town, and say, we're getting rid of this coal mine. It's bad for the environment. We're going to replace it with solar and wind. And it's the right thing to do. They're always surprised when the town of coal miners is angrily against it. Right now, the reality is they're not anti-wind, nor are they anti-solar. All I know is I'm a coal miner. My father was a coal miner. My father's father was a coal miner. All I know is how to do coal mining. And all I know is this mine down the street produces income for me to take care of my family. And you're coming in here and say, we're going to take your income away. We're not getting rid of coal. I'm taking rid of your livelihood and you have no discernible skill set. What you get is fear. And when somebody doesn't feel seen or heard and they feel afraid that you're coming in to take something away from them, they're going to put up a wall and say, you cannot do that. That's the same thing going on here, which is all the discussion is all the jobs it's going to take away, all the things it's going to destroy. And so what it's producing is fear. And when you have fear, you have emotional reactions that have nothing to do with computers, nothing to do with algorithms, nothing to do with generative what it has to do with, at the minimum, is how I vote. But worse, it can get people so afraid that they start lashing out in antisocial ways, sometimes as individuals and sometimes as groups. And we are not talking about the social ripples. We're also living in a world where the haves and the have-nots, the richest people and your frontline worker, the disparity, is so great, right? The average, so if you go back, I think 50 years or so, 40 years or so, on average, a CEO made about 35 times what the lowest paid worker. And now you're talking 400, 500, 600, 700 times, 800 times the lowest paid workers, right? The disparity is so great. 1% of the population owns 80% of the stock. You know, I mean, it's just, it's It's so great. And when you have huge gaps between the wealthy and those who work to make the wealthy wealthy, that is a recipe for rebellion. So we already are living in a tinderbox right now where this is what is— this is normal, right? And it's— it's— and we've seen the rise of this populist message. I don't care if you're a Republican and Democrat. We heard it from Trump. We heard it from Bernie Sanders. Right? They're pointing out the disparity. And the liberals loved Bernie and the conservatives loved Trump, right? Because they're saying, look what's happening. And unfortunately, in both cases, are leveraging fear for a vote. But we're not talking about the fear that the discussion of AI is producing and the reactions that can have that has nothing to do with a computer. Really? We're not talking about that.

What are the fear conversations that you're hearing from people and what are the emotions that are coming out of it at the early stages and where do you think that's going to head over the next few years?

Nobody's listening. Again, it goes back to that coal miner example. Well-intentioned people can come in and say, This is something that's important for the environment, but we understand that this is highly disruptive to your life. We're not going to take anything away, but I want to hear how you feel.

They're not asking those questions.

They're not asking questions. They're not trying to understand the fear. They're not making people feel seen or heard or understood. They're just coming in, they're barreling in. And by the way, this is both sides of the political aisle. Both sides of the political aisle are barreling in with their desires without listening to the people who it's going to affect. Right? And then they're surprised that people are angry and put up a roadblock. And so to answer your question, it's not happening. Those conversations aren't happening. There is a total lack of listening in our nation. There's a total lack of empathy in our nation. You know, we're now living in a world of you're right and I'm right and you're wrong rather than We have a problem and we should be you and me against the problem rather than me against you.

Which is like a healthy, conscious, intimate relationship. But they teach you in therapy.

Correct. And you'll find a lot of overlaps in the stuff that we're going to talk about. If you want to talk mass population.

Yes.

And intimate relationships. It's interesting. It's human beings talking to human beings.

Do you think that we will ever, as a nation, at least in this country, be able to say, hey, how do we come together and focus on the problem? Not you're right and you're wrong. Or do you think it's politics create so much of a division that people just, there'll be too much fear for people to actually listen to both sides? I'm not even talking about politics, but just about AI or relationships or business or wealth or whatever it might be. Do you think we'll ever be able to do that?

You know when people come together and put all their political differences aside?

War?

Correct.

That's kind of scary though.

When we are challenged by an external existential threat, oh man, we come together, right? We saw it happen after September 11th. We saw, you know, Osama bin Laden believed that by flying planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that it would fracture America. It did the absolute opposite, right? Because there's one thing greater than my fear of you is the fear of that. And we saw it during the first rendition of the Cold War, the fear of the Soviet Union and nuclear war, the Soviet Union. Even though there was politics and there was territoriality and the armed forces and all of the nonsense that still exists today, at the end of the day, we could all agree on one thing, that's worse. So we can put our differences aside because that's worse. And so the mistake that America made when the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union collapsed, is we falsely believed that we had won the war. There's no such thing as winning global politics. It's like the Roman Empire doesn't exist, but the physical land still exists and the people who were Romans are now Italians. It's like nobody went away. They just changed forms. It's like the law of conservation of matter, law of conservation of energy, and there's a law of conservation of people. Right. Right. People don't just disappear because the empire is gone. The empire is a political construction. And so we didn't win anything. The Soviet Union collapsed, but the people are still there and the culture is still there and the land is still there. And America acted like victors. And what always happens in an infinite game, what always happens in a game that has no end, is new players will emerge. It's like when one company goes bankrupt, it doesn't mean the game of business is over, which means new companies will fill the space. Well, new nations fill the space. And so the threats that challenged America showed up in the form of North Korea, in the form of global terrorism, you know, Al-Qaeda and ISIS and all other spinoffs. And I think that global competition is actually a very good thing. It's scary. It creates tension. But the irony is, is we as capitalists, because America believes in capitalism and democracy, we as capitalists believe that competition is ultimately good for the consumer and we have laws against monopolies. Well, America for 30 years was acting like a monopoly, like the cable company. Everybody hated you. You had no choice.

Right.

You know, and you can impose your will on the consumer willy-nilly, which America imposed its will on the world willy-nilly with no reaction. And so I actually think the rise of a balance of power, a competition, is probably the best thing that can happen to America. It doesn't have to lead, it doesn't have to be war. It doesn't have to be war, but it does have to be somebody who offers a legitimate challenge to the power structure.

Why do you think in our personal lives it takes a near-death experience to us or someone around us, a big health scare, a divorce, a breakup, or a massive breakdown in career or something for us to see a new path and start improving who we are, becoming better, transforming, overcoming this breakdown? And why does it sound like it takes war or conflict or something extremely scary out there for us to come together and start to transform as well as people?

You know, we're, we're a myopic bunch. You know, human beings are very dopamine-driven, you know, find the food, look for shelter, you know, then do it again. And long-term planning is not really our strength as a species. Because long-term planning exists in our imaginations, I better save money for the day that I retire 60 years from now. It's just like, well, or I could just buy shit now because it feels better. We're bad at it. We're bad as governments at it. We're bad as individuals at it. We're just bad at it. We're not engineered for it. And so I think That's a part of it. And what near-death experiences do or competitive threats do is they're tangible reminders of what could be. Because again, we're tangibly driven animals, right? We love tangibility metrics, things we can see. You hear a bump in the night, you have to go look for it. And so it makes it real. So Even though global threats have existed since the fall of the Soviet Union, now that you can see one, now you can give it a name and a flag and a language, it becomes a real thing. And I think the same goes for near-death experiences. It's like my mortality, which was something that I didn't think about, is now real, which is why I ask old people for advice. They give the best advice because they don't give a shit. What you think about them. Because they're close because they've accepted their own mortality.

The end is near.

The end is near. And so I'm not doing anything to please you anymore.

Yeah, I'm not trying to impress you.

Talk to a 20-year-old and talk to a 70-year-old and see what kind of advice you get. And it's not just experience and wisdom. Of course, that factors in as well. One is much more concerned about what you think about them. The other one really doesn't care. So I think that's what these shocks do. And I think one of the things that storytelling does, one of the things that you do and I do and others do, is by telling the stories of other people's near-death experiences or other people's losses, hopefully inspires people to take on themselves without having to go through the challenge themselves. That's the ideal. But, you know, I remember after September 11th, I was in New York on September 11th and lived through it.

You were there?

Yeah. I watched the buildings fall.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where? What part of the—

I was downtown. I was in SoHo.

Really?

So just about— I was— I actually did the calculations. I figured out I was exactly 1 mile.

You could see the buildings from my office.

Yeah. I watched. I was— I was walking. I took the subway and the subway stopped at 14th Street and I still had to get to SoHo. So I walked down 7th Avenue which the end of 7th Avenue was the World Trade Center.

Wow.

And so I was walking down watching them burning.

Holy cow.

And then got to work and the view from my office was the World Trade Center.

No way.

And yeah, I remember the very strange, yeah, that's embossed in my brain. I'm not going to forget that image of it.

What was that? I mean, this is a little sidetrack here, but what was that day like? I mean, watching it at your office, what was the scene like? Were people paying attention? Was ever all eyes on the building?

Of course. Of course. Of course. Wow. We were, you know, at this point, we, when I woke up in the morning, because the first plane hit shortly after 8 AM and I hadn't left the house yet.

Had you already heard about it?

Well, it was on the news. A friend of mine told me to turn on the news. So I turned on the news and there was a hole in the World Trade Center and it was burning. But the scale of those buildings is so huge that we couldn't tell that it was an airliner. We thought it was a Cessna. So you saw a hole in the building, but the building was so big, you literally just thought it was an— and it was a beautiful day. So it's not like there was a storm. It was a perfect day. So we just thought it was an idiot in a Cessna. And I went to work. And people started to talk about it on the bus. I was taking the Crosstown bus, like, you know, did you see what happened? And by the time I got off the subway on 14th Street, because, you know, media disappears under the ground, now there were people sitting on the sides of the street listening to radios in their cars. And at this point now, we started to realize this was terrorism. So we started to recognize what it was pretty quickly, but we didn't know what the implications were. And we also didn't expect the buildings to fall down. You know, it was a weird flaw in how the buildings were made that made them— because most buildings had internal load-bearing structures. And what made the World Trade Center unique was all the load-bearing structures were on the outside. And so the floors basically floated in the middle. So except for the escalators, except for the elevators, you could stand on one side of the World Trade Center inside and look clear over to the side of the building. It was an amazing building. And so they collapsed on top of each other when it came down, which Nobody knew what happened. Um, and so, um, I was in constant contact with my sister who worked also in SoHo across town. Wow. And we were talking constantly. And after the second building fell, I called her up and said, I'm coming to get you. We're going to go home. And we lived uptown. And so I walked across town to get her. And, uh, we were part of the mass exodus walking 4 miles uptown. And of all the thousands of images that were captured that day, one image I, and I went through all the books and everything, you know, one image that was really never captured was this, it was very quiet. We were all walking in one direction, just imagine thousands of people, no cars on the road, walking north.

No one in the subway.

No.

Yeah, everyone's just—

Everybody's above ground and we're all going. It was very quiet and speckled in between all of this exodus were people covered head to toe in soot. But other than that, everything was normal. They were holding their briefcase and their newspaper and it was just covered in debris. They were covered. I mean, we saw the pictures of people covered, but they were just speckled. And my sister, she had two colleagues, which we dropped them off on the way. And I remember there was all 4 of us and we were coming up Park Avenue and there's a guy sitting on a stoop frantically calling somebody, I guess to tell them that he was alive, frantically calling. And we walked up to him and we said, give us the number. No words were spoken. We just, I remember we just walked up and said, give us the number, we'll help call. And he held up his address book. He just pointed. He didn't have words. We all typed in the number into our phones and we're hitting, you know, send, send, send, send, send. Every single one of us was trying to call. We were all getting busy signals. My sister's phone got through. She hands him the phone. He takes it and he says, I'm okay. I'm okay. And gives the phone back and walks away. And we're all crying, obviously. We dropped off two of my sister's friends, her colleagues, and it was just my sister and me walking up the rest of the way. And we got to Grand Central Station, which blocks Park Avenue. So you have to go around it. And as we got there, somebody started screaming, run, run, run. And we saw the cops because there were fighter jets flying over. So you heard planes, but you didn't know what they were. So you heard planes flying over. And we look down the street and the cops are going like this. And everybody started running and like dropping things and shoes falling off. They thought another plane had hit. We didn't know what it was. So I grabbed my sister and I'm thinking to myself, okay, there's going to be a blast. It's going to come down like this. And I pulled her off the street and like put our hands, you know, like up against the building. And I look up and it's a huge glass, you know, it's a shop window. And I'm like, this is not going to be good. So I grab her and we just start running. And then eventually just sort of petered out. It was a bomb scare. It turned out later. And then we made our way to the rest of the— we made our way back uptown and didn't leave for, you know, 2 weeks. You know, we just, like everybody, just started watching television obsessively. Nonstop.

Yeah. Holy cow. Did you guys, did you go back to work or did you ever say like work was done for weeks?

Work was done for weeks. And when it opened up, like nobody really wanted to go. And my office was in part of the town, in part of the New York that was shut down. Like you couldn't, they couldn't get there.

Holy cow.

Like they wouldn't, they wouldn't let you down.

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How did that moment of being there, Ground Zero, really shape you emotionally after that, after experiencing it in person? You know, I was in— I was a freshman in college when I saw it on TV, and it was like, it was a big deal in Minnesota when I was in college there. It was like, you know, the whole city came together, was the whole thing. But you were there. How did that shape you?

Well, my story is one of literally, you know, a couple million. I mean, there was a lot of people in New York that day, and they're all pretty unique stories, but they're all deeply touching and deeply personal for all of us. I mean, you said it. I mean, it reminds you of humanity and it reminds you, you know, and I remember that was September 11th was very important to me in my career because I worked in advertising and I struggled to go back to that stupid job in that stupid industry.

Really?

Yeah. I really, once I did go back to work, I'm like, what am I doing with my life? Like, it's like you, and a lot of people signed up for the military because they're like, I got to do something with my life. And I think a lot of people had the realization that the life that I live is stupid and I want to do something that matters. And that's when I started thinking this, this is the stupidest industry in the world. Like I come to work to help people sell shit they don't need. Like what the fuck am I doing with my life? And my entrepreneurial venture started pretty shortly after that so I could do things my way.

Interesting.

And do things with purpose and started talking about things in a very different way. So yeah, it was pretty formative.

I mean, and it took unfortunately a big breakdown to happen for you to start seeing, maybe you had already noticed it, but that was really the eye-opening, like, okay, I've got to make a change.

But go back to your original question, which is why does it require these things? I think that's not interesting to me. I mean, I think that's sort of like, I get it. I think what is interesting is why does it go back? Right?

Like, what do you mean?

When you have that life-changing experience and then you, you don't make a change. You do. No, no, you do make a change, but then it runs out. So I saw this happen after, after September 11th in New York for, for quite a, quite a long time. I would say months. New York was utopia. There was no crime. No, no.

Everyone came together.

Everyone came together. There was literally no crime.

Everyone loved each other. Strangers.

What do you need? I'm here for you.

There's nothing. And like the total number of racially motivated crimes in New York after September 11th was zero. So nobody like took their anger out on, you know, an Arab population, for example. Just didn't, just didn't happen. And, um, and I remember thinking to myself, this is going to go away. Like we're going to forget and we're just going to go back to being New York again.

Wow.

Sure enough, in enough time, we got distracted by the short term. So this COVID was no different. In the middle of COVID we're all thinking, oh my God, you know, I have to reevaluate my life, my work-life balance. You know, I don't want to work like a crazy person like I used to anymore. Productivity is not going to be my primary metric of whether I'm having a good day or not. And that went away. You know, we're all working like idiots again. And like productivity is like, people look down on you now if you're not having a productive day. Like we forget. And Again, it's the biology of the dopamine-driven animal that is more driven by the short-term and the visual. That to me upsets me more. It's not that you need some sort of shock to convert, but that the conversion doesn't last. And so, you know, you were joking about my orange watch and I use symbols to remind me. And so I'm surrounded. I'm like an orange belt. And like, you know, I keep things around me to remind me that these things matter. And I tell the stories. And I tell the story of going to Afghanistan with the Air Force. I tell the story of, you know, my experience at September 11th. And it's not, it's in part to remind others, but it's also in part to remind me. You know, my sister, suffered a horrible tragedy many years ago where she lost her fiancé. He was killed right in front of her 2 weeks before her wedding.

Oh my goodness.

And during COVID she came to me and said, I think I want to talk about my experience on the podcast because I know a lot of people are losing loved ones and perhaps my experience can help them. And, you know, again, it's in part for others, but reliving that, that horrible day with her, is a reminder to us as well that our relationship matters and our friends matter and our lives matter and long-term matters. And, you know, and productivity is not the primary metric of a good day. And the ability to, I think, you know, it talked about the 20-year-old versus the 70-year-old, you know, it's the ability to shut out the noise, the peer pressure that judges you based on how much have you accomplished, how much money have you made, how many promotions have you had, what's your salary? You know, like we're judging our self-worth based on what other people pay us. And sure, everybody wants to make more money. I got it.

You know, what should we judge our self-worth on?

The life that we live. I think we should judge our self-worth on the value we have in the lives of others. Do other people think of you as a good friend, a good sibling, good son or daughter, you know, a good father, a good mother, good colleague, good teammate? You know, I think that I would rather be, I would rather judge myself on that. And again, we're dopamine tangible driven animals and it's much easier to judge myself based on number in a bank account because I can see it and I can count it. And if there's a lot in there, it must be valuable. And if there's little in there, that must be unvaluable, which is nonsense because I can tell you I know a lot of rich people who have no value in the world and rich people aren't necessarily the hardest working. I know a lot of very rich people who are lazy, and I don't criticize them for that. Just don't think that because someone's rich that they're incredibly hardworking. And please stop calling the homeless lazy. You go be homeless for a day, see how lazy you have to be in order to survive with no money, no resources. Good luck. Laziness isn't— that's not it. Like you actually have to work hard at surviving when you have nothing. And I think we have all of these metrics screwed up and they're all based on what I can count and what I can see rather than the value I have in the lives of others. And by the way, you don't even get to judge that because the only way you know you have value in the lives of others is if others say you have value in their lives. Right. So that's a thing, right?

I'm curious about your your sister's story, that's really heartbreaking, but also fascinating that she wanted to say, hey, maybe I can help other people through my own tragedy, through my heartbreak, through my loss.

And the person she is.

What was that? What was the lesson that you learned from you not going through it yourself, but witnessing someone that you loved go through a loss like that? What was the lesson for you?

You know, I'm— there's a silver— I talk about balance all the time. There's a silver lining in every cloud. There's a cost for everything we gain in life, but at the same time, there's goodness that comes out of every loss. My sister and I were already pretty close. I mean, it made us even closer. My family and I were— my family and us were also already pretty close. We got even closer. I think tragedy brings families together in a way nothing else can. Perspective. You know, the stupid stuff that we got stressed about just isn't that important.

You know?

There's something called post-traumatic growth. We love talking about post-traumatic stress, but there's also post-traumatic growth. There's a lot of growth that comes out of loss and tragedy as well. I think, yeah, I think these things, I mean, you said it right at the top, right? It's the fragility of why do we need these reminders? So I think that was a big one. And, you know, my sister's happily married. She's got two kids, you know, built a new life. And that's super inspiring. That's great. That, you know, people go through breakups. Are divorces and they think that's it, their life is over, they'll never find love again. I'm like, well, here to tell you, she created it. Yeah, you can find love again, you know. And she has a picture of, of her fiancé that she lost in, in her office on her desk. And it's like, I see it there and it's a nice reminder for all of us, you know. Um, his loss is, is a nice reminder to all of us that live, live, live life. Love life. Easier said than done. I mean, you know, you and I write books about this stuff and it's hard. It is hard work. And I get a kick out of that, by the way. You know, it's very easy to be a cat. Cats don't think about being cats. They're just cats. Right? But you have to be, you have to actually work really hard to be a human being. Like being a good human being actually requires so much work. Yes. You know, and there's, there's, that's funny to me. You know, like to be the best version of a human being is actually very difficult and requires studying and effort and discomfort and all those things that, you know, I think this young generation tries to avoid.

Yeah.

Not the work part, the discomfort part.

Yeah. You mentioned about, you know, we shouldn't be— I can't remember exactly what you said, but we shouldn't be focusing on our— a good day being on how productive we are. Yeah. We should have a different metric of what a good day is. How do we measure what a good day is then if it's not a productive day?

So this is the problem with things that are hard to measure. It doesn't mean they don't exist. It just means they're hard to measure. You're in love with your girlfriend. Show me the metric. Show me the number that proves to me that that she is the love of your life? Well, you can't. You can show me a bunch of behaviors and I can ask her if she feels secure, she feels safe, she feels seen and heard, if she feels she can be her best self because of the space you provide her. But I got no number. So just because you can't measure something or just because something's difficult to measure doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Right. So that's, that's an important lesson. I learned that in my career too. So I had this meeting at the Pentagon, sitting in the foyer waiting for the general to come in for me when he was ready to see me. And we've all had this experience where you're waiting in a foyer, waiting in a waiting area, and somebody will come and get you and they take you to the conference room or the office. And because being quiet is uncomfortable, we fill the dead air.

How's your day?

Exactly.

What's going on?

Exactly. Exactly. How was your flight?

So hot out here.

So hot out. Exactly. Exactly right. It's hallway talk. All it is is designed to fill dead air. That's it. And the minute you walk in the office, it just stops. Nobody actually cared. Well, that's what happened to me. The general came to get me. We start walking to his office and the hallway talk begins. And he says, "You know, Simon, I had everybody in my office read your book." And I said, "My publisher thanks you." And he said, "Tell them not to bother. I had them read my copy." Total book sales, 1.

Wow.

Total impact, huge. Compared to I go to an event and they give away 500 free copies of the book, total book sales 500, but they use them as doorstops and coasters, total impact 0.

Maybe 3 or 4 people read it, right? Right.

So it was that experience that I realized is I can't measure impact simply based on book sales or dollars or income or anything like that. Now, over the long term, I think you can, The book is sustainable, but in the short term, it's really a useless metric. So I had to get comfortable with the fact that I was doing things that I couldn't measure the impact, but I knew had an impact. And you've heard me talk about these things before. I talk about exercise where you go to the gym and you come home and you don't see anything and you go to the gym the next day and you come home and you don't see anything. And so you're like, it's not working and you're in pain.

And you want to eat a cheeseburger, pizza, and ice cream.

And you keep doing it and you still don't really see anything until you maybe look down read a scale or— and sometimes that's— weight isn't even the thing. You're replacing fat with muscle. Your weight might go up, right? Until people start saying to you, you look really good.

You look young.

But you never saw it happen. It's like you never see yourself get older until you look at a picture of you from when you were younger, right? And so, you believe— we know from the science and we know from experience that if I exercise, it's a process. And it's good for me even though I can't measure it in the short term. And if I eat well and I keep doing that, I know it'll keep me healthy for the long term. I've eaten more leafy greens and less sugar. I know I just have to stick to this process that 100%, 100% of the time it works. How long does it take to get into shape if you start exercising? Nobody knows. Neither does any doctor. Sometimes a little less time for some people and sometimes a little more time for others. We don't know. We just know 100% that it works. And so I had to get used to the idea professionally that I'm going to do things that I know work, but I won't be able to measure them. And I just have to be okay with the fact that it works, like exercise, like eating right. And so that's where, you know, learning an infant mindset and letting go of annual goals. So people are like, you know, what's your annual goal? I don't have any. Because I can't predict what I'm going to achieve based on arbitrary timelines. So I have guidelines. You know, like I run a marathon. I'd like to know the speed I'm going at. Like, I do look at numbers. They matter to me. They help me measure speed and distance, but I don't get happy or sad if I hit or miss a number.

Why do you think so many people get sad or happy based on if they hit their goals? And sometimes you hit your goals and you're still not happy.

Because we're dopamine-driven, short-term visual animals. I mean, it's going to go in a circle., right? And because we can create, if you create a goal and you hit it, you get a shot of dopamine. That is what happens, right? Any kind of beginning, middle, and end. If you reach the end, you'll get the dopamine, like find food, found it. Oh, it feels good. I lost my keys, found them. Oh my God, it feels so good, right? This is why we often confuse on a first date. We do this like falling in love. On the first, you know, on the first date. Not really true. That's not oxytocin and serotonin. That's actually dopamine because you think you found the thing you're looking for. So you have a list of things in your head that you want in your relationship. This person seems to have a bunch of them and you have, you know, new relationship energy. All you see is the stuff that you want that's on your perfect list, the perfect stuff. And you're literally like, I think this is the one. I think they're the one. I'm like, congratulations, you are getting— you're flooded with dopamine on day one, right? Or day two. And you are not in love. We've all made the mistake. You are not in love. I've made it too many times. Of course. Go out a bunch more. Go out a bunch more. You realize what the hell was I thinking? Right. And they've said that about me. We can't help ourselves. And I think that if you recognize these things and let's go right back to the question where you started. Which is you talked about the condition of the human relationship, right? And I think when the human relationship declines, when our feelings of love and friendship and closeness and deep meaningful relationships decline, we become more obsessed with the external validations, the clicks, the likes, The followers, you know, to the point where it's literally become a career. I'm an influencer, which means I have more clicks than you, more likes than you, more followers than you. And that makes me an alpha in our society. You know, I went to an event recently and there was this, this pretty girl who was I was sitting in my seat at this event and she was posing for pictures as her friend took pictures of her. And somebody leans over to me and she goes, she's a very famous influencer. And I said, you mean she's a freelance employee of an algorithm? Because that's what an influencer is. They're freelance employees for algorithms. They might make a lot of money. Some freelancers make a lot of money and they work for the algorithm. The algorithm is their boss.

They have to feed the algorithm.

They have to feed the algorithm. If the algorithm changes, it could destroy their whole income. And you never get to rest. You never get to rest because the algorithm doesn't rest. You don't get to rest.

And it could influence their self-worth.

So the smart influencers, if they're making coin, right? Bank that coin, invest that coin because you are going to burn out or the algorithm will change or somebody else will do it better than you. More likely you're going to burn out because nobody can maintain that pace of recording your life every moment., you know, for content, content, content, because the algorithm never rests. Think of it like CNN. It's a 24-hour news cycle for your life. Crazy, right? And we saw what happened to the quality of news when we went to a 24-hour news cycle, 24-hour news cycle, right? Now think of some of the quality of life when you go to a 24-hour content production schedule. Your vacations, you have to bring your camera with you. You're always on. You're always on. Your relationships, you're bringing your camera with you. You're going to burn out.. And if you've been saving your money and investing your money, you'll be just fine. But if you're spending that money, it's not going to be good.

How does someone manage their own life's motivation while making sure they're being somewhat productive to have a career that pays them an income and can cultivate growth within a career or their own business? While also creating the metric of a good day? How can we balance those three of staying motivated, not being lazy, having a balanced, healthy, beautiful day while also being productive?

What's wrong with being lazy? Nothing's wrong with it. What does lazy mean?

What does it mean to be lazy? I think my definition, if I'm being thinking about it right now, is more of not caring about anything. Would be my definition of lazy, not caring. Caring. Okay.

But maybe not that. But I think it's clear that we use that. Yes. Because lazy to some people might be sitting on a couch watching TV all day. Right? Now, if I've been working like a crazy person—

That's relaxing.

That sounds good to me. That sounds good to me. Or maybe I'm watching documentaries and I'm generating ideas. Right.

Yeah.

That's not lazy to me. To somebody, that I haven't produced something at the end of the day that's tangible because this thing's being produced all the time here, ideas. Then, so let's be clear that what we mean by is not lazy, what we mean by is how do you live a life where you care? Like people who don't care. So I think older generations, and I count myself amongst them, our generation is pretty judgy because we believe you go to work, you get the promotion, you move up the ladder, and we kind of understand people who don't have ambition, right? What do you mean? What do you mean you're not interested in, like, moving up the ladder and getting more responsibility and one day achieving a leadership position?

They feel entitled to just be a leader, right, at 24, right?

Yeah, right. Like, we're— but we're pretty judgy, right? And I think we have to recognize that Raw ambition is fine for some. And some people want to just come to work, get a paycheck, and have that paycheck pay for their lifestyle. And they're not interested in moving up the ladder. They're interested in fair compensation. It's not that they don't care. They do care. They still do good work. They're just not career-minded. They're lifestyle-minded. And so We can't judge them as unproductive and lazy just because they don't have any aspirations to move up through the ladder. But they can't get all, if they haven't been given like massive raises when they're just, you know, like managing. And I know a lot of people who are very happy. They make a decent living. They spend their money and they go on vacations and they save enough. And it's all balanced. And I think they live fantastic lives. They care. They care about the work and they care about the quality of their work. They care about their lives and the quality of their lives. And they want the two to coexist. But remember we said cost, there's a cost for everything. So if you want to be highly, highly ambitious and make all that money and get all that charm, that comes at a cost to your personal life. If all you want is go on vacations, well, that came as a cost sometimes to your income. Or your professional stability, right? So the goal is to find the balance that you're comfortable with. You know, some may tilt a little more towards ambition and some may tilt a little more towards lifestyle. And it's not for us to judge, it's for us to understand. And if I can understand that's how somebody on my team wants to live a life, then I'm okay with that. And I'll, then as long as they do good work and they care, I think that's a very good, important, as long as they care, I'm not going to overload them with stuff that they can prove to me that they can do it, but I want them to do good work within those boundaries. And I'm cool with it. But when we talk about, I think this whole idea of setting boundaries, it gets a little bit misunderstood. Right? Everybody thinks you have to set boundaries, which means keep people away. I refuse to do that. That's beyond my boundary. I'm not doing that. No, no, no. That's not what boundaries mean. What boundaries means are, Let me tell you what I imagine and what my limitations are. We have boundaries in relationships, right? You sit down with your partner, you co-create the relationship that you want to have. And if you're a good relationship, you discuss what the boundaries are that you both agree to obey. And it's not for us to judge the boundaries of other relationships based on the boundaries of our relationships and vice versa. We create the boundaries that make us comfortable and we agree to stay within those boundaries. We can do whatever we want inside those boundaries, but we cannot step outside those boundaries. Whatever relationship style you want to have, you got to have boundaries. And that is a discussion. And I think that is the right thing to do in a professional circumstance as well. It was always assumed that there's only one kind of boundary, which is the one I have. Right, right, right. And if you got to work till 10:00 at night and work on a Saturday, you do it, make it happen.

Right? Yeah.

But that's not the reality of a young generation anymore. But we're not having the discussion. What we've confused is boundaries as a conversation versus boundaries as a unilateral wall that says, I'm not doing that and you can't ask me to do that. Right. It should be a conversation, which is somebody says, look, I'm not interested in moving up the ranks. I want to be treated fairly. I want to be paid fairly. I'm going to do good work, but I don't want to work late at night and I don't want to work on weekends because I want to live a lifestyle. And I'll say, okay, like in any relationship, let's have a negotiation, which is I'm cool with that. Every now and then, every now and then when there's a lot of stress and things have gone haywire or we have a huge deadline, I may need you to stay late a couple nights or the occasional Saturday, but I'll give you Monday off. I'll make it up to you. I'm not going to take away from you without giving you back. And I won't do it a lot. I won't abuse it. But every now and then, are you okay with that boundary? The flexible boundary. Right? So I hear what the boundaries are you want, you understand the things that I need, and we come to an agreement and say, yes, those are the boundaries. We're all cool with that. We're in alignment. We're in alignment.. And that becomes more productive. But that's not what's happening. Usually the discussion of boundaries is me telling you as opposed to— and by the way, try that in your relationship, not going to go well. Me telling you what my boundaries are in my relationship as opposed to a discussion where I can understand where the boundaries are coming from and maybe your past experiences, or maybe you've had bosses that took advantage of you, or maybe you were underpaid and somebody abused the fact that you were, you know, salary or whatever it is. It's just a conversation because we don't know what somebody's previous experience is that makes them create the boundary that they have now. And they're usually based on some sort of preventing something from happening again. That already happened in the past. Right? It happened to me. I'm never letting that happen to me again.

Bingo.

My boundary. Yeah, yeah. Right? Like everything, and this is going to be a circular conversation for us, it's human beings interacting with human beings. Yeah. And We have to do this together. The relationship is ours. My girlfriend and I joke that when we first showed up in our relationship, I wanted her to fit the blueprint that I expected of her, what I expected of a girlfriend. Which was?

I mean, we all have our own. Yeah, your own definition of it.

We all have our own blueprints of what we want. Right, right. And she wanted me to fit the blueprint of what Her definition, her definition of what a boyfriend should be and what the real— and what my definition of a relationship should look like. And we were both failing miserably to live up to each other's blueprint. Really? Of course.

Were you failing? Were you failing after it was discussed?

Here's what— there's no discussion. Everybody shows up with a blueprint in their head and you don't. You either fit it or you don't.

Right.

Okay.

So that's where the conflict started.

Of course. And then you— they're constantly letting you down or you're picking fights or whatever it is. It didn't go very well until we sat down and be like, this is not working. And so we agreed that I have to throw out my blueprint and you have to throw out your blueprint. We like each other a lot, so we know that. There's a good basis. We respect each other, we care about each other, we have the same values. Why don't we agree to write a new blueprint together? And co-creation became our mantra. That's beautiful. Right? That the relationship will not be mine and it'll not be yours. It'll be ours. And I can no longer make a unilateral decision about what I want in this relationship because the relationship doesn't belong to me. It belongs to us. We have joint custody of this relationship. Interesting. Right? And by the way, you can't make unilateral decisions about what happens in this relationship because it doesn't belong to you. I got 50% of this. Right. Right. And the result has been amazing and it requires lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of communication. And boundary setting discussions. And I think professional relationships should be the same, which is I have a blueprint in my head of what an employee should do. An employee has a blueprint in their head of what a company or a boss should do. And the problem is, is hopefully that goes well. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it completely falls apart versus saying, I got this job, you got this You know, you're, you got this, you're my boss. Can we have a discussion about what we want this relationship to be? I'm not going to get everything I want and you're not getting everything you want. It's not because that's the boundary. Like I declare, right? That's just not going to work. Right. But can we, this is why I think it's important for companies to talk about their why and their values. I think it's important for companies to set expectations what it's like to work here. And don't give me this, work hard, play hard bullshit. Any company that tells you we work hard, play hard, please run in the opposite direction. Why not work smart, play always? Because working hard sounds unhealthy and playing hard sounds very unhealthy. It's like, I worked too hard this week, so now I'm going to get shit-faced this weekend.

Very unhealthy at work, very unhealthy on the weekend.

Yeah. Sounds like burnout recipe. Work hard, play hard is a stupid philosophy. Work smart, play always. And the point is, that's why I think it's important for companies to talk about their why, talk about their values, be honest about them, because you'll attract people who will more likely want to work within the boundaries that you're setting. So for example, people often ask me about Amazon. Isn't Amazon a horrible place to work? Right?

And I'll say, well, they never lied.

This is the expectation. They never lied.

Right.

They didn't say, oh my God, it's a party here every day. Everybody, like, it's just like unicorns and rainbows. Look, you work 3 hours and you go home. Right. They never lied. They're pretty public about it's a really demanding job with ridiculous hours. And even the people who love it over the last 2 years, you know, It's a really hard place to work, but if you like those conditions, then go work there. And here's some benefits that come with those conditions. And there's benefits. Or people talk about Steve Jobs was an asshole. Yes, but people who worked there, people who worked at Apple under Steve Jobs will all tell you that they were pushed harder than they've ever been pushed in their careers. And the things that they accomplished, they wouldn't have been able to accomplish anywhere else but there.

Right?

So if you're okay with those boundaries, then go work there. But the point is, is these companies tell you what their expectations are and what it's like to work there upfront. And the reason that's important to do that is to attract people who are more likely to want to work within those boundaries. But it's still an act of co-creation. And if you don't like it, then you should leave. Yes. Right? Enter a different relationship. Now, if the company lied to you, that's different. Yes. Right. Then you do actually have the right to complain and point fingers. And sometimes even like at Amazon, it got a little too far. Sure.

To reel it back a little bit.

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All rights reserved. Why do you think— I don't want to— I mean, I guess I am generalizing a little bit, but obviously this isn't the case for everyone in the younger generation. But why does it seem like there is a conversation happening about the younger generation where there is an entitlement or demand energy towards, okay, this is my first year in this job, you know, out of college, 2 years out. I don't have all the skills or the experience or the results to show that I'm capable of getting this, but I demand and want all of these things that the older generation wasn't able to do. And then they constantly, not generalizing, but a conversation of them wanting raises within the first month, more unlimited time off, this kind of lazy mentality and entitlement.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's multiple factors. Of course, parents is one of them. It's the parenting philosophies of the generation. That was a big part of it. When you and I got in trouble at school, our parents said, what did you do now? If a lot of people get in trouble at school now, their parents say, what's wrong with your teacher?

Right. No, I got suspended. Right.

You know, I was like punished for weeks. Right. And, you know, again, sometimes it is the school and the teacher, but there's bad kids too.

You know, kids do stupid things. Sure, sure. No, I cheated. So I cheated on a test.

So I got the consequence.

Quite rightfully so. But it wasn't like, well, You know, they shouldn't punish you. Let's just, you know, do this or make an excuse for me.

So parents is part of it. Social media is part of it because we're constantly comparing. My sister had somebody who worked for her back in a previous job, and he walked into her office and said, can you give me a promotion? And my sister's like, you haven't worked here that long. Right. And he's like, well, hold on. No, no, no. I don't need— you don't have to give me the additional responsibility, and I don't even need a salary raise. I just need the new title so I can put it on LinkedIn so my friends can see.

Come on.

Yeah.

Holy cow.

After what, like a few months of working there? Yes. But it was really about the, the, the display. Yeah. The display. So it became one of those metrics like followers or likes, which is how many promotions have you had on LinkedIn? You know, and it's a false sense of accomplishment though. So, so, and it's really funny because there's a corollary here, which is We know that when there is conspicuous displays of wealth, so name brands, when you wear your little Gucci or, you know, or you get your Chanel bag, there's a reason they put the logos on the outside, right? It's because we like that everybody knows, right? And there's data on this that when you wear your fancy stuff and you put it on and it makes you feel— you actually get shots of— you get bursts of serotonin. 'Cause it makes you feel proud and like you're higher status in the community and all of that. That's what conspicuous displays of wealth do, makes us feel good. We also know that when you wear a fake, everybody may think that you got that Chanel bag, but you actually get no serotonin. So if you have a fake, you actually don't get the feeling of I'm the shit. Right? Because you didn't earn it.

Because it's not real.

It's not the real thing. So I wonder if it seems like, it seems to make sense that when you have a fake promotion for the title to show your friends, that though your friends may be impressed because they're looking at the logo, that you actually know that it's fake. So you actually don't get a feeling of self-confidence. And I think that this is good. And in other words, there's no growth that comes from it. In fact, it might do the opposite. It might make you insecure. Wow. Right? We know this from kids who get medals who come in last, right? Which is great. You gave them a medal. They know they didn't deserve it. Actually makes them not feel good. Interesting. Right? Because they didn't deserve it. They know that. Because they, and the kids who did earn it, it's devalued because you gave one to somebody else as well. So parenting is part of it. Social media is part of it. But I think the other part of it, which is not considered by older generations. My business partner talks about this all the time, which is when I entered the work field, when you entered the work field back, back in the day, we were legit. When we came out of college, we were legit idiots, right? We had no clue. We thought we had no skill set whatsoever, no discernible value whatsoever. You know, we all started making photocopies, right? And we had to look up to the people we worked for because they were going to teach us everything that we needed to know. And we learned a skill set from working and from the people who we worked for, right? That was how it worked. Yeah. You have a young generation now that's graduating high school and college that enters the workforce with a skill set. And sometimes it's a skill set that the older generation doesn't have. They understand personal branding. They understand social media. They understand how computers work. Photography, video editing. They understand the algorithms. They can game the algorithms better than anybody. Right? Look at all the— look at MrBeast. He's what, 22, 23? Billions of views. Right? His numbers are better than every top movie ever. Ever. Yeah. Right? I went to an event once where there was all these like fancy actors. And MrBeast was there and none of them knew who he was. And I was looking at, and I was like doing the numbers, which is if you took like one of the A-list celebrities and added up the total number of people that have seen all of his movies ever, it doesn't even come close to like one video from MrBeast. Crazy. Right? And yet none of them knew who he was. And they all think they're hot shit. And like, no, this kid's the hot shit. Right? So I think that's another problem. It's not a problem, but that's another consideration, which is that 21-year-old actually does have a skill set and they know that that skill set has value. And so they are entering the workforce knowing that they know something that you don't know. And so they're not coming in as total idiots. And though there is still the need for them to learn and to, there's the sense that I already know something. And so You should start giving me more upfront. Wow. Right. And so I think it's right for older generations to recognize that they actually know stuff that we don't know. And they're actually good at things better than we were when we were their age. And that has value, just not as much value as they may think, because there's still a lot more for them to learn. Sure. Or there's the application of that skill set that needs to be honed. Or maybe that skill set has no value in this job. Right, right.

Get a job to do that. So it's— what is the— I mean, we're generalizing this, but what is the greatest skill that the younger generation has going into the workforce and the thing that will hold them back the most?

Well, that's a good question. I think they're probably one in the same, to be honest. I think it's a complete comfort facility with technology integrated into their lives, fully integrated, which is a blessing and a curse. It's going to— I'm just a repeating record, which is there's a balance and there's a cost for everything. And the cost for that facility and that ease and that comfort with technology is deep meaningful relationships.

Interesting. Because they're on the phone 20 hours a day as opposed to connecting in person.

Or worse, they think being connected and connecting are the same thing. I had a fight with a 16-year-old a couple years ago that they, her and her friends send voice messages to each other. And I said, why don't you just pick up the phone and call each other? She goes, we are. I'm like, no, you're not. You're sending voice memos to each other. She genuinely believed that that was a conversation. Right? It's not a conversation. It's disjointed. It's listening to my answering machine and then leaving somebody's message on their answering machine. That's what it is, just in real time. It's just quicker, right? But I think that, and when we feel a little lonely or down, because we have such facility with the stuff, we go to the stuff to be a balm for that feeling of loss or loneliness we have. It's not that different for any— why alcoholics drink, or, you know, which is alcoholics drink only for a finite number of reasons, which is social stress, career stress and social stress. It's pretty much it. Did I say financial? And, you know, when, and we see it all the time, right? You see, you know, Brené Brown talks about this as well, which is we've confused vulnerability in broadcasting, which is making a video by yourself in your room of you crying because you're depressed or you got broken up with or whatever, you know, and, and you just being vulnerable, and then you have that expression validated by likes and views. That's not vulnerability. It's not vulnerability. That's simply broadcasting your emotions by yourself. By the way, you're by yourself in your room with your phone, right? That's literally what's happening. Now, I challenge people who do that: go have that exact conversation, say all the same words, to a friend in the same room as them, and you'll find that much more difficult.

Is it harder to broadcast to a million people your emotions than it is to one person in person? No, it's easier. It's easier to do, to broadcast? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Than it is to have a conversation with a friend, a family member, or someone close to you? I can go on, I can hit play, I can hit record on FaceTime. And I can look in my computer and be like, I'm struggling. I'm really having a hard time. Stop. Play. I'm gonna do that again. Record. Wow. I'm struggling. I'm really having a hard time. Real talk here. Just talking real talk. You know, just speaking my truth here. You know? And I want you guys to know that, you know, I'll get through this. And then analyze it afterwards and then post it, pick a picture to go on it, versus going to a friend and sitting across a table from somebody and going, I'm struggling and I don't know what's going on. That's excruciating. Wow. That's true vulnerability because there is no vulnerability doing it by yourself. There's a perception of vulnerability just the same way I can turn on a movie and watch an actor playing vulnerability., right? And I'm like, oh my God, they're so vulnerable. Well, I'm watching the performance of vulnerability. So for me, the viewer, it's real. And I have no doubt that the person making the video is feeling something.

I can get it.

But they're creating a piece of art. But they're not— it's not that they're creating a piece of art. It's that they're not— the thing that will help them, the thing that will help them get over that feeling and feel safe is not the number of likes that validate the expression. The thing that'll make them feel safe is for them to have the incredibly uncomfortable, awful conversation with somebody where they say the same things and that person sits there and goes, I got you. I got you. Right? And I remember I have a friend who's, he's an impressive dude. And I love him to death. And I didn't want to show him vulnerability because I am so impressed by him. I wanted him to be impressed by me. He's so strong. I want him to know that I'm strong. Right? I don't want him— and it's not because I intellectually understand the importance of vulnerability, but it's still, I want my friend to like me. My amazingly impressive friend that I think is super impressive to think I'm impressive too. And I'm on his level. And I remember I was struggling and I called him up and I go, I'm not in a good place. And he was like, what do you got, bud? What do you need? And I remember we were out once and I said to him, you're one of those friends that I would call in a hard time. And he said to me, I'd be mad if you didn't. And we have this magical relationship now where we open up to each other and we open to each other pretty— and it doesn't at all do any damage to what I think about him.

In fact, it makes me think more of him. That's beautiful. The interesting thing— not to interrupt you there, but the interesting thing that you said, intellectually, I think all of us think, I don't want to— I want to be on their level. Of course. So I want to be strong or make sure that I'm representing myself in a way that is at their level. And if I'm vulnerable, showing that I'm struggling, then will I be less than them? Correct. Why is that when actually vulnerability brings us closer together?

Well, it's also a story we say in our own heads, right? Because it turns out he's not all buttoned up and it turns out he's not got every answer and it turns out everything he touches doesn't turn to gold and it turns out he's got insecurities and it turns out he's got fears. And turns out he's got anger and he's got frustration and he's got all those things too. It turns out he's human. And this is where the relationship became beautiful, which is he is more impressive than me. He's a much more impressive guy than I am. And I love him to death and he loves me to death, not because we're comparing our resumes. It's because we trust each other and hold space for each other. And I've seen him at his worst and he's seen me at my worst. And that's fine. And I think that's what social media doesn't allow. And again, forget about the people who they're broadcasting to. I have absolutely— you've helped me. Seeing this has helped me. I know that when I broadcast things, it helps people. I know that. And that has value. Yes. I'm talking about the person who's making the video, who's struggling themselves, how they find safety and salvation. They will not find it in the broadcast. They will at some point have to go to a friend and ask for help. Wow. And they can still make the broadcast to serve others. Yeah. Not anti the broadcast, but that person is kidding themselves if they think that is the way to find peace and calm in a life.

Yeah. There's something that I wanted to go back to. I'm loving all this, by the way. Thank you for sharing so openly. Which is about the breakdown in life and the breakdown, the scenario, the situation that causes us to either fall apart or come together or start to look differently about our life and ask what's the point of the direction we're heading. I'm curious in your mind, again, there's been a lot that's happened in the last few years. Pandemic, war, and AI, which is being talked about more. Obviously it's been around for a long time, but now it's being talked about more.

Yeah, yeah. And then it's moving at a pace that's ridiculous, which is very, very scary. I don't mean to diminish it. It's moving at a pace fast now. When the internet showed up, the adoption for internet was years. Yes. The adoption for most technologies is decades. This thing is increasing its potential and its speed in weeks and months, which is crazy. And which is not giving us time to consider that balanced equation That's the part I find scary is not the technology, it's the speed of adoption. Right. And the social ripples. And social ripples. Yes. And remember, governments have to adopt it. They don't have a choice. Right. Right. So like nuclear weapons, right? When nuclear weapons showed up, governments had to, whether they wanted to or not was irrelevant. They had to because if the other one does, we don't have a choice. Right. It's the same thing here. Like all of the defensive and offensive weapons and AI, governments have to, they have no choice. But we actually do have the ability to set pace and we're not. And there is fear of being left out. There's massive FOMO. So one company's investing in it heavily, other one's like, we have to invest in it heavily because they are, so we have to. And so there's FOMO and fear of being left behind. And some of it's true, but not necessarily the pace and blindness which we're throwing the technology at our companies and our businesses. And I think history will always repeat itself, which is when you do something blindly and too quickly, at some point it's going to break. Right. Right. And so we don't know what or how that looks, when it's going to happen, but it's probably going to happen. Right. I mean, think, you know, nature abhors imbalance and seeks equilibrium at all times. This is why when there's a stock market crash, we call it a correction, right? Because there is imbalance and it finds correction. That's how Mother Nature works.

She always finds balance at some point, right?

You don't know when, but if you don't know when, but it is going to happen. Yeah. Right. And I think that the imbalance that we're creating with the speed of the adoption of the technology that we don't fully understand, the balance is going to happen. Yeah. I don't know how, I don't know what, I know what's going to look like. No one can predict it. There's a lot of people trying and there's no way to slow it down because now the genie's out of the bag.

No one's going to be like, you know what, I'll be the one to slow it down.

Let's stop this. Yeah, yeah. You know, government can put some guardrails on. Europe is actually attempting to put some guardrails on, which I think is helpful. Interesting. Yeah. America, not so much. Right. You know, we think guardrails are anti-capitalist, which they're not. They're just guardrails. Yeah, exactly. We can debate where the guardrails are, but guardrails are good.

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Fundera Inc., NMLS ID number 1240038. You mentioned early on, I like, I like that you talked about the fear that causes a lot of social ripples. With these different things that happen, right? Especially around AI or around pandemics or around war, right? You've mentioned a few of these things. With everything we've seen in the last few years, which one do you think will cause more fear and more emotional reactions or social ripples between another virus or pandemic-like experience war or AI and the acceleration of AI?

I think income inequality is bigger than all of them.

What is that? Income inequality. Income inequality will create more social ripples and fear than these three.

Yeah, just look at what's been happening over the past 30, 40 years, the rise of populism, the rise of strongman leaders, the cynicism about democracy. And it's not that democracy or capitalism are bad. It's that this version of democracy, this version of capitalism, not democracy, this version of capitalism that we have that was largely engineered in the '80s and '90s by people like Jack Welch and Republican and Democratic presidents at the time is woefully imbalanced. And it is lopsided. You know, the stock market used to be a place that the average working American could share in the wealth of the nation. And now the stock market has become the bastion for the few. You know, CEOs who are incentivized by the price of an equity work hard to make other people rich and often don't include the workers, or worse, use the workers to help balance those books, though the use of mass layoffs. Which was a relatively modern phenomenon, didn't exist in the United States prior to the 1980s. Really? Didn't exist. I mean, there were layoffs, but not to balance the books. They were used for existential reasons. Like, we're going bankrupt, we have to do something drastic. Right. Versus, oh, we missed our numbers, you lose your job. Wow. That didn't exist. And so we have a very woefully flawed version of capitalism that is not the capitalism that made America great. Nor is it capitalism, the kind of capitalism that Thomas Jefferson was enamored by as written by Adam Smith. And I think that disparity, and we're seeing it play out now in the strikes, the writer's strike and the actor's strike, which is people working hard to make a small group of people very wealthy and being left out. Nobody minds that a CEO is highly paid. The problem is, is that it's the system of how they get paid that you're, you're not including and bringing people with you. That's the problem that you're making money off of their backs without them, without them letting feel like they're sharing in the spoils that they helped create. Right. That's the problem. And we know how we got here. It's because again, this goes back to metrics, right? The way we measured money was very easy. This is sort of going off on a tangent.

If we really want to talk about it.

I like your tangents. Yeah. You know, which is, I used, it's very easy, right? And this has been talked about. This is not a new idea. I would broadcast a TV show and I could count how many people viewed it, right? Ratings. And then I could get picked up for syndication and I can count everything and I can give you a percentage of all the things that I can count. Right. Whereas when we went to streaming and everybody, when streaming first showed up, they thought it would be minor. So they didn't, it wasn't built into the contracts. Yeah. It was considered an alternative media. Don't worry about it. Yeah. But now when something gets a billion views, there's no direct advertising dollars applied to that show. And there's no syndication applied to that show. And even though that show may, we can't tell that that's why somebody subscribed because the subscription made the money, not the show, even though the show gets more views than everybody else. And so, and Netflix and none of the streamers tell you the numbers of the views, which is really a bad idea. So it goes back to metrics and numbers, which is if you can count it, you need to share the numbers so that we can establish a value.. And if we can establish a value, we can say what it's worth, right? So hiding numbers is never a good thing when it comes to playing with people's income.

What do you think capitalism should be?

The new definition of capitalism should be then? Well, it's everything that I write about in every single one of my books. The Infinite Game. Yeah. The Infinite Game, Leaders Eat Last, and Start With Why all are attempting to chip away that, you know, Start with Why was that companies should be driven by a higher calling and higher purpose, not just, not just making money. It's totally anti Milton Friedman and Jack Welch. I mean, I hope to undo everything Jack Welch ever did, you know. Leaders Eat Last was about taking care of the people in our care, you know, that leadership is not about being in charge, but taking care of those in your charge. And The Infinite Game is recognizing that this game of business cannot be won. So stop playing it like it's a finite game. And stop using people as pawns and start being grateful that they're helping you advance something bigger than yourself. And I lay it out there. I lay out what the principles of capitalism should be in the chapter where I've done Milton Friedman. I offer an alternative list of hierarchy and priorities.

Can't remember what they are.

I mean, I'm hearing you say, go ahead, yeah. Feel free to share it. Chapter 5. What page is it on? Capitalism should advance a cause, protect people, and generate profit in that order. One more time. Advance a purpose, protect people, generate profit. So the responsibility of business is to use its will and resources to advance a greater cause than itself, protect the people and places in which it operates, and generate more resources so that it can continue doing all those things for as long as possible. An organization can do whatever it likes to build its business so long as it is responsible for the consequences of its actions.

That is, for me, what capitalism should be.

And we're not seeing that right now. No, it's the opposite order. It's generate profit, you know, advantageous purpose on your website. It's called marketing. And protect people, you know, when it suits us. Interesting. No, no, like version of capitalism we have right now is pretty bastardized.

So the— I'm hearing you say the income inequality and where that's heading is a greater fear and risk than another pandemic, AI, and war.

The— whenever you have a huge delta between those that have and those that don't have, you have revolution.

Wow.

But this is happening all over the world, not just in America, right? Of course.

I mean, in other countries, it's— there's a rise of populism around the world. There's a rejection of democratic values because they've confused democratic values and the version of capitalism we have.

They've conflated the two, right? So what usually happens in a scenario like this and how long does it take for that thing to occur? What has history taught us?

There's going to be a revolution. Really? Around the whole world? Come on. No, I mean, come on. I mean, January 6th, these are not the signs. I mean, listen to the messaging of the populists. It's the haves versus the have-nots. Yeah. You know? The left needs to listen. You know, they're quick to— the left and the right are both quick to criticize the leaders of each other's movements, but they're missing the— they're not listening to why people are interested in those messages. They both think— both sides think the other side are sheeple. Both think the other side are blind, deaf, and dumb. And yet neither side is paying attention as to why They both have their own rabid followings. And problem is, is most of the country is moderate. Most of our nation is pretty moderate. Most of our nation is pretty fine in between, willing to find compromises, not really, you know, reasonable. And yet the angry extremes on both sides have seemed to set the tone. They're playing a finite game. But, but, you know, I, I'm genuinely afraid of, of— and I don't know how it looks or when it happens, or— but I'm— I think, yeah, I think when we start ripping— when we start accusing each other of being traitors— I mean, the left and the right literally say, call each other traitors or un-American. That's not good. That's not good.

That's not good.

It's not good. I've got a few final questions for you. This has been powerful. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for opening up and sharing. I could go on for hours. This is a question I asked you before that is called the 3 truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It is that last day on Earth for you, and you get to live as long as you want, extend your life as long as you want, and create and do all the things you want to do. Yeah. But for whatever reason, it's the last day and you've accomplished everything or not and just lived beautiful days without accomplishments. But you can't take— or excuse me, everything you've created has to go with you. This conversation, gone. Your books, they're gone. It's on to another world or somewhere else, but they're not in this world. Everything you've ever said or done, we don't have access to anymore. But you get to leave behind 3 lessons. I call it the 3 truths. 3 things that you know from your experiences are true to you that you would want to leave behind as lessons to the world.

What would be those 3 truths for you? Really love the people who love you. Really love them. Learn all the human skills that you need to be a good human being, because being human is hard, and have as much fun as possible. And what I mean by having much fun as possible doesn't mean playing video games and taking vacations every moment, but make jokes, make jokes, have a sense of humor. Like, you can't be angry and laugh at the same time. Stephen Colbert talks about this. You can't. Like, there's something magical in a high-stress situation as a joke. And whether it's gallows humor or whether it's you find the absurdity in something, it's like, just make sure to maintain your sense of humor. Yeah. So love those who love you desperately. Learn the human skills to be a great human being and make sure that you appreciate that life really is fun.

Over 1,000 conversations, I don't think I've heard them in that, in that way, those three truths. I've asked it every time and I didn't expect that from you. So it was really beautiful. I appreciate you sharing those three. I want to acknowledge you, Simon, for your constant personal growth. No, thank you. Your constant personal growth. You know, I've watched you for years, you know, be a phenom on the internet with TED Talk and books and all, you know, all the things and accolades. You know, I've been at events with you. I've had you on the show. We know a lot of the same people and, you know, but I really love just watching you personally grow as a human being, speak about these things, loving people desperately, having as much fun as possible, you know, being someone who's looked at as an intellectual and extremely smart, talking about humor and fun is awesome for me to hear. And being the best human you can be, knowing that this is a challenging existence, or it can be unless you choose to learn skills and overcome it. So I'm really acknowledging you for your personal growth. Thank you. And hope now that we're more neighbors, I'll run into you more frequently and get to give you more hugs. So I really acknowledge you for Thank you. Everything. And I also acknowledge you for this, which I think is interesting. Asked you before we came on here today. I acknowledge you for not having something to be productive in right now. Of course you've got, you know, book and your podcast and, you know, content that you're creating, but you're not like, I'm working on this massive project and I've got to do it. I've got this deadline and it's got to be this way. You're like, yeah, I'm allowing ideas to come to me. I'm allowing things to form. I'm building deeper relationships. I'm connecting with my my girlfriend, I'm doing these things. I acknowledge you for that because I think it's hard at times to allow ourselves to not be overly productive and always creating something and always trying to strive to be on top. So I acknowledge you for being in that space.

I think it's a beautiful thing too. Well, that's very nice of you. I think it's important to know who you work for, right? So I would only have stress to come up to write another book if I believed that I worked for my publisher, but I don't. And I would only have stress about the amount of content creation I have to produce if I believed I worked for the algorithm, but I don't. I work for the people who share this world with me. I work for my friends. I work for my family. I work for the people who see the world the way I see it. And I live, try to work very hard to live a life of service. And the way I manage my social media is I say something that I think is additive. I never pile on because there's no point. I'm very prescriptive that I will speak if I have something that I believe is additive. And if I have nothing to say and I have nothing to write, then I'm going to say nothing and I'm going to write nothing. And I think you have to know who your customer is and then be fiercely customer-oriented. And I use the word customer in quotes. Like if you're a parent, you know, your kids are your customer. You know, if you're a teacher, your students are your customer. You know, if you're a nurse, your patients are your customer. And I think you have to be fiercely, fiercely customer-focused. And in my chosen line of work, My customer is the army who chooses to stand shoulder to shoulder with me to build the world that we imagine. Wow. A world in which people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do.

Yeah. I love it, man. I want everyone to support you, and you've got a number of great books. The Infinite Game is one that I think the themes have been spoken about throughout here over and over again of how we can start reimagining our own personal lives or career. Industries, you know, everything, the world. So I want people to get this. Start with Why, obviously, is a phenom that everyone should have as well if they haven't got it. Your simonsinek.com has got all your content and information. I love your Instagram and your LinkedIn is massive as well. If you guys are over there, you need to— It's all focused on human skills. Exactly. So if you want to develop better human skills, follow wherever you're on social media and— All the places, all the things. All the things, the podcast. Bit of Optimism. You can check it out there if you want to go deeper as well. But how else can we be of service to you today?

Do the things. Like, the being of service to me is to— I'm one person who puts out a vision of the world and some tools to help build it. But until leaders lead with those tools, until we— and by leader, I don't mean those in charge. I mean those who choose to take on the awesome responsibility to see those around us rise, which can happen at any level. Inside an organization or in our society. And what I need people to do is do it, because I, I'm—

my work is intangible, and I need people to make it tangible. Yeah. Final question.

Yep. What's your definition of greatness? Um, I think it's everything we've talked about. My definition of greatness is, is living a life of service.

And, you know, the people that I think are great devoted themselves to the lives of others. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode. In that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I wanna remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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