Simon Sinek: The Number One Reason Why You’re Not Succeeding | E145

0:00 we don't teach leaders how to have uncomfortable conversations we don't teach students how to have uncomfortable conversations you tell me which is going to be more valuable for the rest of your life how to have a difficult conversation or trigonometry described as a Visionary thinker with a rare intellect multiple time best-selling author S cynic every single one of us knows what we do some of us know how we do it but very very few of us can clearly articulate why we do what we do and I think one of the reasons most of us don't know who we are is because we're making decisions that are inconsistent with that true cause with that why there's a great irony in it in all of this I had what a lot of people would be considered a good life and yet didn't want to wake up and go to work anymore why I we cannot do this thing called Career or life alone we're just not that smart

0:46 we're not that strong we're just not that good for anyone who wants to be a better version of themselves purpose comes from it's one of the best podcasts I've ever done so without further Ado I'm Steven Bartlett and this is the dire of a CEO USA Edition I hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this to [Music] yourself Simon my introduction to you was this book start with why and it hung on the walls of some of my offices around the world for a long time and then my employees would come in after reading the book and evangelize about it and it would come up in meetings and in

1:32 discussions and in Creative brainstorms Etc over and over and over again the question I wanted to ask you was was there a point in your life where you'd felt like you drifted so far from your why that you realized the importance of it for the first time well the simple answer is yes um it was that drifting that set me on the path to find it in the first place to to to even articulate that idea I had what a lot of people would be considered sort of a good life as living the proverbial American Dream you know I quit my job to start my own business the business was doing okay made an okay living had great clients did good work

2:18 and yet I'd lost my passion for that and didn't want to wake up and go to go to work anymore which was embarrassing because superficially everything was just fine I was pretending that that I was happier more in control and more successful than I was or felt um which is quite frankly pretty draining and pretty dark and it wasn't until a very very close friend of mine came to me and said something's wrong she was the first one to notice something and I came clean and I sort of let it all out and uh it was that catharsis that sort of lifted this heavy weight off my shoulders I was no longer alone it was no longer a secret um and all of the energy that was previously going into lying hiding and faking now went into finding a solution there was a complt of events

3:05 it's not you know all of these histories are perfectly neat and clean and that's not really how it is or was but to compress it and make and oversimplify it I made this discovery based on the biology of human decision-making that every single one of us knows what we do some of us know how we do it but very very few of us can clearly articulate why we do what we do and I realized that was what I was missing so to answer your your question yes 100% the realization of the why was my loss of it and I realized I knew what I did and I was good at it and I knew how I was different or special or stood out from the crowd and that was my differentiating value proposition and I was articulate about it but I couldn't tell you why I was waking at a bed every day to do it you know and I would give some nonsense entrepreneur answer

3:50 because I want to be my own boss and like yeah sure but that's not a reason to get out of bed every day this got me thinking a lot about the guests that I have sit here and also my own story where sometimes I think people's why or the thing that's been driving them is in fact some kind of trauma or insecurity I think because you sit here with people in their whe whe whether it's Israel adna the UFC champion who's the current maybe world's best UFC fighter he was battered and bullied as a kid being the only black kid in his school in New Zealand and so it's no coincidence that he strived to be this fighter and in fact when he won the UFC title the next day day he was he was depressed and he went to therapy that's made me question whether like our wise can sometimes be trauma or insecurity

4:39 driven as opposed to being intentional and I don't know so a why is fully formed by the time we're in our mid to late teens the youngest person I've done a y Discovery for was 16 and it worked the process worked um and what I've learned from just doing hundreds of over the years is that a why is always positive it's always striving for something so like we're not inspired against something we're not inspired to stop something we're inspired to build something or create something or Advance something um though it may have been born out of trauma there's usually a silver lining that gives us that cause especially trauma that happens in the middle of our Lives you know September 11th is often

5:24 looked to as you know people found purpose you know We Are Who We Are like I said we're fully formed by the experiences we have when we're young you know at a pretty young age and now the opportunity life presents us is to make decisions that either Keeps Us in balance with who we really are or not and I think one of the reasons most of us feel discomfort or don't feel ourselves or don't know who we are is because we're making decisions that are inconsistent with that true cause with that why so you raise the case of um individual athletes who become Champions and then suffer depression fairly common story you hear this from Olympians you know Michael Phelps becomes the most medled you know uh Olympian of all time immediately suffers

6:10 depression Andre Agassi becomes the most storied you know tennis player of all time immediately becomes depressed and what I've learned from talking to some of these um these particularly athletes but I think it happens in the business world as well which is from a very young age they set themselves a goal that in my words would be a very selfish goal I want to be the best at X the best tennis player the best golfer the best whatever and you know the way Olympians put it which I get a kick out of is I want to win the Olympics like well no one wins the Olympics like you can be a winner in your sport you know but that's an aside but and and their entire lives from pretty young ages every decision they're

6:55 making is to help them Advance this fin goal and all of their relationships are can you help me achieve my goal right and if you can no longer help me achieve my goal I don't need you anymore as a coach or even a friend and those huge sacrifices missing of birthdays missing of Christmases you know missing of major life uh events because I have to practice so I can achieve my goal and when they get into interviewed on the news you know or at the Olympics or whatever you know why do you do it and they will say well I'm doing it to inspire the little kids which is complete [ __ ] you know if you look at all of their uh vision boards from when they were younger of

7:42 pictures of podiums and medals and money and Lamborghinis not a single little child on there of the people you're doing it for it's it's just a Lucky Strike extra I mean absolutely you do Inspire children but that's not the reason you did it you just got that you know like I said it's sort of it's a twofer and and then when they achieve or don't achieve this thing and then can no longer compete for it um they've set their entire path in order their relationships on this one these finite selfish goals and so when it's complete they realize they don't really have a lot of friends around them they don't really have a lot of close relationships they don't really even have a sense of purpose because they've been spent the past 20 years or so with one purpose which was this finite goal which now has run out and so the very purpose lesss

8:28 and I see this in Broadway performance forers who set their whole life to be on the west end or be on Broadway you know every class every tap dancing class every singing class they make it they get there and then depression or at least Mala or senior executive same thing if I just or if I just make a million dollars you know if I just become a millionaire then I'll feel and uh and the problem with all of those things is as I said before they are selfish uh it is your goal for your your reasons which um is not fulfilling for any Social Animal for any human being you know our sense of joy and fulfillment and love and purpose comes from our ability to serve another human

9:13 being have a child tell me how your life changes fall in love tell me how your life changes you know think about all the stupid things irrational things we've done for love we get on planes and travel around the RO just to say I love you you know we do ridiculous things and it all feels worth it and the sacrifices we make for a child all feel worth it but these are no longer for us and these things will live on beyond our own lives they are not finite they are infinite and there's nothing wrong with Personal Achievement there's nothing wrong with setting goals but it has to be in the context of something even bigger in general team sports don't suffer this because you had to do it together you know it's usually individual athletes who suffer this more often uh and so

9:59 there there is a there's one of the the athletes I would point to is a guy by the name of Curtis Martin Curtis is a Hall of Fame NFL footballer um and he only started playing football basically to stay out of trouble he did it as a favor to his mom just so he wouldn't get into he grew up in a really bad neighborhood in Philadelphia and basically kept him out of trouble it turns out he was really good at it and when he realized he was good at it he realized that by being good at something it will give him the power to actually give back later and he he made this realization especially when he went to college on scholarship and then made it to the NFL he realized the better he was at the sport it wasn't about propelling his own career it was about when he leaves this career he has a platform

10:45 that would be bigger than the platform he has now and so he was driven and driven and driven not so that he could be the best not so that he could make the most money in fact he made a lot less money than a lot of other players of his rank not that he could uh be rich or or any of these things he did it so that he could build his platform so he could give back later so when he retired from the NFL he wasn't lost he wasn't searching he he knew exactly what the next step was because being in being an elite athlete to the highest level possible was only step one um and to see one's life as a Continuum rather than than a than an event um is much healthier on that point of seeing one's life as a Continuum by the way you completely we call it atting someone you described their situation but you completely added me you

11:31 completely described my situation in terms of the place of mind I was in at 25 when I had that offer to BU my company it was about me it was about filling some void that I had in me from being like the only black kid in an allh school and thinking that I think success and accolades would fill that void in some ways but on that point of a Continuum as a as a way to live your life the other moment in my life where I which I really struggled in in terms of goal setting and motivation was when I was trying to get in shape and in like 2017 I said to myself I want to get a sixpack for summer that's the goal I set myself really what I was trying to find a way to stay fit forever but I set myself this goal of getting a sixpack in summer that was my thing and then every

12:17 single year my motivation would only last for like four or five months and I couldn't crack how people are continually motivated to work out I've cracked it now but what was wrong about that cuz I've heard you speak about arbitrary goals before what is the the flaw of creating arbitrary goals in our lives and how do we create goals that are more based on that idea of a Continuum you know I I I'm not a huge fan of the the term self-improvement right um but I do like the idea of awareness self-awareness you know we all live with blind spots we all live with missing gaps and pieces of information which will by the way last for the rest of our lives and there are some people choose to live a life where living with those

13:02 gaps is acceptable and they never fill them in and we would say that they remain stagnant and arguably either mentally or physically unhealthy or G gaining you know getting unhealthier as they get older you know for someone for anyone who who wants to be a better version of themselves a more aware version of themselves you you we I seek out information and that comes in all kinds of forms right it can be in a relationship um so for example I went and took a listening class actually I should pref preface with um I was dating someone and she accused me of being a bad listener and I was like you do know what I do for a living right like I'm a

13:50 really good listener so I don't know what you're talking about you know and then I took this listening class turns out I'm an absolutely brilliant listener with people who I'll never see again for the rest of my life but amongst my friends and family appalling appalling so I had this basic skill set that I never applied with the people closest to me and gave myself an out because quote unquote I knew how to listen um and so I realized I was a terrible listener this was a blind spot this was a gap and having somebody love me tell me that didn't work didn't believe them until you know this objective Outsider or at least just took this class and came to this realization that was brilliant that awareness of the blind spot and the awareness of the

14:36 skills that I need to be a better brother son boyfriend friend you know I had to learn how to hold space for someone and then practice um that's awareness and I think our health is awareness unfortunately some people wait for the breakup to learn that they're bad listeners some people wait for the heart attack to realize they're eating poorly you know that's awareness you get awareness by getting a punch in the face and I think I think it's a responsibility for every human being should they want to have value in the lives of others to seek awareness in how they show up in the world and and how the world impacts them their mental health

15:21 their physical health their ability to maintain relationships and nurse relationships and you hear me what I mean you hear me say this over again it's a sort of it's a repeating pattern which is for those who want to show up better in the lives of others which is I see being healthy as a service to others I see being a better listener being a service I see everything in terms of service to others there are benefits to you as well of course but I I think we've neglected for decades the the socialness of our of our animal and social media and cell phones and and the and the ubiquity of those technologies have complicated our ability to be human um there are others who comment on this as well brne Brown talks about this where we have a Young Generation that has mistaken

16:08 vulnerability in broadcast right where you sit in your room by yourself put your phone on record and make a video of yourself crying because of the loss of a relationship and then posting that on Instagram or SnapChat or YouTube or Tik Tok or whatever your media of choices and the hashtag is just being vulnerable right and there's nothing vulnerable about that you by yourself broadcasting to the world live or video It Doesn't Matter do that exact same thing with the person you hurt that is way more difficult don't leave a voice memo saying hey I'm really sorry just taking accountability call

16:55 them or go visit them and look them in the eye and say that exact same sentence that you just left a voice memo for that's vulnerability that's really hard and requires practice and we avoid it because it's difficult we avoid it because it's uncomfortable we choose broadcast not because it's better it's because it's easier and then mistake the two and so the reason to learn to be vulnerable is not for ourselves it's for US service to others and I talk about this all the time which we've confused these things and once again going back to what we were talking about before we've weirdly taken these very pro-social activities and made them selfish like go us uh my my biggest P I'll give you my biggest pet peeve and I've talked about

17:40 this one before but it drives me nuts I was at this meet I was in this meeting once and there was a a woman next to me who was this big timey yoga instructor apparently and the entire meeting was a it was a big group of us she was on her phone under the under the desk under the table and I sort of sneaked over a look and it's not like she was like there was a family member in hospital and she wanted to just you know stay in touch she was on social media I could see right and at one point the conversation at the table turned to being present and she popped up her head and said that's why I love yoga because it helps me be present of which I'm thinking you're an idiot you know and I started to realize we've confused things here which is we

18:25 don't get to decide when we're present we get to practice being present but you actually are not present until someone else says you are you know you don't get to sit with a friend and be like I feel present if they don't feel it that's like me saying I'm a great listener except I'm not right I don't get to self assign these accolades especially when they're social they can only be assigned by another and so for anyone who's ever practiced meditation there are absolutely benefits to us without a doubt and it is those are important mental and physical health benefits of meditation and mindfulness and we should practice those for sure but there's also that what I think is the primary reason some would consider secondary reason which is if you

19:11 practice meditation for example you learn to focus on one thing your Mantra a sound whatever it is you learn to your breath you learn to it's you don't nobody you don't think of nothing you think of one thing you focus on one thing right and if something interrupts that thing you have a thought did I leave the washing machine on you know you label it a thought and you push it out of your head and you say I'll deal with it later and that's the whole the whole idea is total focus and the ability to put your thoughts out of your head to stay focused on this one thing now think about when you're sitting listening with a friend who's going through a hard time are you listening are you waiting for your turn to speak right the whole meditation practice that you've been doing is now valuable in this moment where you are focused entirely on what they're saying to you every distraction every Screech of a car

19:59 outside everybody who's talking around you you don't hear any of it you only hear what they're saying to you are entirely focused on what they're saying to you and when you have your own thoughts of advice you'd like to give or things you want to tell them oh my God me too that happened to me as well right you say NOP that's not important in this moment and you put it out of your head and deal with it later and at the end of that conversation your friend will say thank you I feel heard or thank you for being there for me or thank you for holding space for me or thank you for listening and those are all uh uh indications that congratulations you've been present for another and I think what gives our lives purpose is not to wake up every morning to learn meditation so that we can be present for ourselves though that is valuable what gives our lives purpose is to do these things for

20:44 another there's nothing wrong with doing things and enjoying the benefit of those things Yourself by all means but the sense of the deep feeling sense of purpose and meaning to one's life or to one's work only comes when those things are for another and in my view primarily for another where our benefit is secondary you can't have equal there's no such thing as equal because at one point one of those things will have to be sacrificed for the other and do you sacrifice your spouse's love so that you can stay in love or do you sacrifice your comfort do you sacrifice as your your girlfriend boyfriend spouse's comfort so that you can be better or do you sacrifice your comfort so they can feel better that's an obvious it's obvious well it's the same here it's the same analogy which is I choose to sacrifice my my happiness my joy my

21:30 comfort my Lamborghini in this moment not forever but in this moment for you for you my employee for you my friend you know um I will delay so that you can have and that's where the joy and love of business relationships friendships come from you know there's a great irony in it in all of this which is to sacrifice for another really is the most beautiful thing we can ever do I mean that's kind of what love is it's sacrificing for another um and all of these things whether it's learning to be a better Communicator learning mindfulness and meditation being in shape if you can translate those things in for another all of those things start to have a higher purpose in the case of Health

22:18 doing it for another you're saying that it would be so that I can be here longer for my family would be a much more joyful if I had children for example sure as long as it's real m it can't be generic right it can't you just can't you can't just put it out there just so it's fills the you know Mad Libs and you fill the Gap yeah yeah you know it's got to you got to actually feel it that that actually is the purpose I'll give you one then so part I do think about this and I thought about this last night when I was in the gym was in part I think I work out because I want to be healthy and in shape for my for my girlfriend like I want to be I want our relationship to be good I want us to be able to be active together I want her to be attracted by me when I'm naked you know like and I had a debate with my team as to like whether that's a noble reason to work out and should we have a

23:05 feel an obligation or whatever to be in shape for our our other half I think to be healthy for our other half for sure but you think the aesthetic stuff is a bit I think it's fine I mean I think the aesthetic stuff is about confidence right which is I'm sure she'll love you even if you're chubby you know I'm sure she'll love you even if you don't have a six-pack you know but if it makes you feel confident then it's like people who have nose jobs you know like somebody says you can't have a nose job why are you well if it makes them feel better about themselves then how can we argue with it like if they if they went from being really really insecure and hiding their faces or bad teeth and they never wanted to smile to fixing their teeth and now they smile all the time like why why should we tell them they count now of course there's a line getting addicted to plastic surgery is something different and there is a line but you

23:51 know getting your teeth done or getting a nose job to make yourself feel better is it's fine if it builds your confence so if it builds your confidence and then and it's a and you're doing it in a healthy way you know then you know it's like how can somebody argue that you shouldn't be exercising so it looks now again there is a line there are some people who actually overdo it where if they stop exercising they gain a tiny bit of weight they actually spiral there is a line where they're actually not building confidence they're actually building insecurity but some of these things don't have to be big and lty they can be ridiculously small like so for example for me you know I very good at um disappointing myself like I have no problem disappointing myself right like I'll wake up in the morning two hours before my alarm and

24:38 I'll say to myself you should work out like you're up super early you've got a busy day and you just got an extra two hours you could like use 30 minutes of that to work out get out of bed I'm like n I'll sit in bed for two hours and just like read the newspaper and play Wordle you know and two hours will go by and I won't work out do I have any guilt none I'm just like H you're an idiot Simon right now if I'm meeting someone at the gym at 7:30 because we're going to work out I'll be there I won't let somebody down I'm okay letting myself down but I won't let somebody else down so for me my purpose sometimes is very in the moment like I'm doing this for them it's like you know when I when I would run you know one of the reasons I stayed in good running shape is because when I ran with my running buddy I never wanted to

25:25 ruin their run if they wanted to keep a slightly higher Pace I could keep but so it doesn't always have to be big and lofty sometimes it can be in the moment when you talked about awareness there and the importance of trying to become more aware about ourselves and one of the things that made you aware was that conversation with your partner yeah where they said you don't listen you're a shitty listener yeah um self-awareness what I don't know if that's a real thing but self-awareness um seems to be the foundation of grow personal growth right so becoming aware about something in our lives and people can read as I always say people can read as many books as they like but if they're unable to read themselves will never really learn a thing for me and I I I wrote that a couple of years ago and I had a guy in my office who read every single he was actually one of the people that always came in with your books right he read every single book I've ever seen he knew every book but he never changed yeah and

26:13 and he and there was things within him that he wasn't self-aware about that I believe were the reason why he couldn't evolve even though he was taking in so much information how does w go about what are the the the key ways we can go about increasing our sense of self-awareness so that we can grow and evolve such a good question you know it's kind of like people like that are a little bit like yo-yo dieters you know they they do every diet but they're not healthy people I read every book but I'm not growing and you can't assess yourself you know it's like can you I mean you know this from work right which is at some point somebody's going to have to give you feedback at some point you have to give somebody else feedback like self assessment is a thing but it's not the only thing it's a thing it's a data point and I'm a huge believer in

27:00 self assessment but you have to have that butress with the assessments of others because we are blind very often we're social animals we cannot do this thing called Career or life alone we're just not that smart we're not that strong we're not that aware we're just not that good as social animals we actually need each other to watch our backs and tell us what's working and what's not working and I think for somebody who goes through life and reads those books all the books you know I guess good on them I guess but are they asking for help are they asking for uh Insight from others as opposed to just reading it and agreeing with it and thinking they're making the changes I know my own personal journey and I try I do think of myself as I I I work hard to be self-aware and I work hard to

27:46 self-evaluate but I I have seen in my own life my ability to truly demonstrate real awareness um and move further down the the journey and path called life as opposed to staying stagnant came when I let others help me you know we we don't build trust by offering help we build trust by asking for it because it's a vulnerable thing to ask for help will you help me is a very very vulnerable statement can I help you not so much an act of service but the act of service really comes from allowing somebody else to serve you which it becomes this whole weird Twisted circular thing you know it's like I I mean I'll give you a silly

28:32 example people who are bad at taking compliments right you're so smart no no no no no no right we downplay it because we're embarrassed by the compliment right but a compliment is a gift somebody's paying you a gift now if somebody handed you a present you wouldn't push it back because it would be rude right you would accept it and whether you like it or not or whether it makes you comfortable or not you accept it with gratit ude and then you go evaluate it later oh that's an ugly sweater you know but you're still grateful for the thought and the gift and the compliment is the same and I think all of these things the willingness to you know to deny someone else the joy of giving you the gift of the compliment and to deny someone else the intensity and joy of being there for someone else again I think is selfish

29:19 never asking for help is selfish asking for help is a great Act of service because you allow someone else to have the joy of sacrifice and it goes backwards and forwards it's not one-sided and this is where I think great relationships work which is we take turns and sometimes it's really difficult when both of us are in need at the same time that gets really difficult good thing we have friends so you know the height of Co um I have a couple of my friends they're sort of remarkable High performing individuals both of them and one of them called me out of the blue she went for for a long walk she says I'm doing really badly and I need to talk to you and I

30:04 don't want to talk to my husband because he's doing really badly as well and I fear that if I talk to him he doesn't have the energy for me but I know he'll want to be there for me which will make it worse for him we're both really struggling can do you have some time to talk you know and I mean a the willingness to ask for help B the willingness to understand that asking her husband for help would made it even more difficult for him it was just a very sophisticated and beautiful moment and to this day we became and not only did we become closer for it but her husband and I became closer for it as well because I was there for her when he knew he couldn't be and this is why we have friends like again we can't do this alone not only are we social animals we're tribal

30:50 animals you know it's more than a friend it takes a community um and I think one of the you know we're always talking about what eating and we're talking about what we're you know what you know what supplement we're taking or we're always talking about those kinds of things or what book we're reading but we we don't do enough talking about how we are nursing our close personal relationships how we were taking care of those closest to us and making sure that the tribe is strong um the crew is taken care of you know um and I think there's a lot more work that we can do in that arena is there practical things that you do with colleagues Partners friends to create that culture of seeking feedback being

31:38 open being truly vulnerable you know some people say oh we'll have we'll sit down with our diary and we'll write we'll do this exercise or you might have seen in organizations where they do like 360 feedback things is there is there practical things we can do to create a culture of seeking out that feedback and creating a safe space well the simple answer is of course um the there's no such thing as a single Silver Bullet It's a combination of things it's like what's the one thing I can do to happy have a happy relationship well I I can't I can tell you a important thing but I can't tell you the important thing so it's the same um and everybody's a little different you know and each culture is a little different so there's there's not even a set list I can get but there's some things that people can choose from you know one thing is one of the ways we create space is how we react right if someone gives you feedback and you deny it well that's a problem if

32:26 somebody gives you hard feedback and you thank them for it it's a very different environment it creates so I I I'll give you two uh examples one a lesson the other one a practical example that someone can use so I had the opportunity to visit the Army Rangers uh Ranger school in particular and I where they make they they make army rangers and one of the troubles they had a bunch of years ago was they had these folks that they called Spotlight Rangers which was they were really good at their job like they were brilliant at all the tasks that were set to them strong their the teachers the instructors loved them they stood out they were great they were motivated but as soon as the spotlight was turned off when the instructor wasn't there and

33:12 they were back at Barracks they were [ __ ] and the only person who the only people who knew were their were their friends and colleagues because the spotlight was turned off and so the Army Rangers implemented a system of peer review in order to identify Spotlight Rangers and in now by the way they started this 40 years ago which I find incredibly Advanced um but to advance through Ranger school you need to pass three tests you need your instructor to say yep you're ready to go to the next level you need to physically actually perform all the tasks required of you and you need to pass your peer review um and if you fail any one of those three you don't make it to the next level interesting and so that becomes an equally weighted component of advancement in the Army Rangers which is what kind of team player are you which I

34:00 love so we implemented a system of 360 review um which was sort of a bit of an amalgamation of things we' taken from other groups and made our own where what we what the way it works is um you take the group of people you have regular interaction with and you um fill out uh your top three weaknesses or the places you believe you need to grow the most with a specific example for each so top three specific weaknesses or or places you need to grow the most and then top three specific strengths or the places you believe three examples of the

34:46 places you believe you've grown the most they have to be specific not like Oh I'm a much better timekeeper now no that you got to give some specific examples they're collated and distributed amongst the team and then you come together as a group and you take turns reading them so first you read your own weaknesses and then the group has the opportunity to add to that list and here's the best part we give a little speech before the whole exercise starts that the people who are going to give you this feedback really don't want to it's really uncomfortable for them it's going to be uh they they would just rather not do this exercise at all but they're going to do it because they want to see you and help you grow and so

35:32 what they're giving you is a gift and so you have to receive it as a gift which means you say thank you you don't have to agree with it if you don't agree with it say thank you then just dismiss it it's fine but if it has an emotional impact if it makes you angry or frustrated it's probably true right and we go around the room and somebody tell they every people can add to this list of these weaknesses in any way that there's no format they can do it in any way they want and you sit there and you look them in the eye and you genuinely say thank you you're not allowed to say a word except thank you then you do your strengths and you read your strengths and anyone can add to the list and just as you discovered you have blind spots you didn't know you have you discover that you have strengths that you didn't know you had that you're having a positive impact in

36:18 the lives of others that you didn't know you were and it's a magical experience there usually tears at some point because it's powerful and it's a safe environment I wouldn't recommend an organiz start there I would recommend you build towards that because you're going to put very senior people and very Junior people in the same room and they're going to have very blunt conversations with each other and it's it's real right it's not a place to start but it is a place to get to I mean there are variations for it that one takes a lot of time you know we've we've vary we varied is where everybody's responsible to do it and you can you have two people assigned and you can choose one or two people to join and you just have a smaller a smaller group when you want to do it you know and it's just for you so the others don't do it in that moment it's it's a little more efficient to do it that way um but there's no right or wrong way I really love that idea of the promotion being

37:04 contingent on not just the your manager or you're the CEO believing that you are x y and Zed but getting peer reviewed by the colleagues around you because one of the things I noticed in my company we had and when I left there was about 700 people but I would have I would hear reports about a particular team member and the reports I would get back about their character and their conduct never match the way they treated me M so they would always treat me of amazingly right of course right and then I'd hear that they treated this person like this and they did this and I'd go really and they go yeah I really they they were always so nice to me and obviously on that basis I would have promoted that individual and thought they were great so that's definitely something I'll Implement that's called a tree of monkeys by the way it's called the a tree of monkeys which is um all the

37:50 people at the top looking down see only smiles but all the people at the bottom looking up see only a oh [ __ ] yeah that's makes I never never had and again you there's you don't have to do you don't have to I mean there's again there's different cultures can accept different you know there's no right or wrong here you know and some cultures may want to implement a peer review that gets included in in a promotion package but it doesn't have to be that good leadership helps there as well which is every senior person knows that they don't get the truth I mean even if your people are wonderful and fantastic people want to tell you the right answer not because they're trying to Li to you but they want to please you like you you knew the more senior you got it was harder and harder to get the truth and every senior leader knows that it's hard to get the truth every great

38:35 senior leader also has spies somebody that maybe you started you were friends with that people don't know you're friends with or you came up through the ranks of the organization together but your career went a little further a little quicker you know that you have these trusted relationships that you can just get a little inside scoop as to what's really going on um also this is the hardest one is or at least it's a hard one learning to replace uh judgment with curiosity so somebody comes to you and says that person is a problem and all of a sudden we create a narrative based on the story that they tell us that they are a problem that person's stupid that person's lazy whatever it is now they're labeled as lazy now we treat them as lazy now everything that they do or don't do it's because they're lazy right um but as a good leader we want to we

39:21 can take those reports we can take that hearsay we can take those direct stories that people have and we can say thank you I appreciate that I'll look into it I'm going to find out more and you go on a little journey to discover what's really happening it absolutely may be that they're lazy that could 100% be it or maybe they're distracted for a reason or maybe they're having trouble at home or maybe we've given them a job that they're ill qualified for or maybe they're having a personality conflict with somebody that they work with like the list goes on and on and on and on and the good leader is finding that out and by the way by I don't mean the senior person I mean any person in the organization um to replace that judgment with curiosity and I think that's what creates those environments but the

40:06 reality is is with rank you do set the tone so for example um no lying that seems like a pretty simple one inside a company we don't tell lies okay phone rings your assistant picks up uh they put the person on hold and they call out to you uh David's on the phone phone and you go tell them I'm not here you've just sanctioned a lie you've just sanctioned a lie right and that little lie then now that person who was told to lie approvingly now they can tell a lie right because came from the boss and all of a sudden you find out you have an organization that tells lies all over the place and some of those lies grow it happened to me once where um I had a

40:54 very very senior phone call with the top leaders of a really big organization like and I forgot I just didn't show up on the call I just I have no no excuse I just I forgot to check my calendar and I forgot and my assistant at the time of course wanted to protect my reputation and she wrote to them and said terribly sorry Simon had another meeting that ran long and I took her aside and it was the hardest feedback I had to give because she did it with such good intention I said I am so grateful I'm so grateful that you're protecting me and you're protecting my reputation and I want you to do that but you have to do that without lying we cannot lie you can say I'm

41:40 sorry he's late I'm sorry he missed the call but you cannot say it's because he was in another meeting because that's not true and so you it's this you know I mean I'll challenge you you try this right let's look at the time right now right it's it's noon okay it's noon on a I don't even know what dat it is Monday right you and your entire crew here's the challenge for all of you okay you may not tell a single lie for the next 48 hours I mean nothing and you'll be amazed how difficult it is you'll be amazed how many Little White Lies We Tell like the waiter comes over and 5 minutes before you're saying oh this food is so salty and the waiter comes and goes how is everything you go it's fine everything's fine yeah thank you it's

42:26 fine that is a lie right now you don't have to be mean there's nothing that says truth has to be brutal it just has to be true try for the next 48 hours and see how hard it is not to tell a single lie everyone's going to be walking around asking each other what they think of each other now Simon said you got to be honest right but there's ways of doing it right like so um do these genes make me look fat I like the other genes much better they're way more flattering right you don't have to hurt people also timing right so a true story so I went to see a friend's play and uh I I could not wait for this thing to

43:12 end it was so bad and I went out you know to say hi to her after the performance and she came out she was still in costume and makeup and she knows I'm an honest broker she cares about what I she knows I'll always tell her the truth in these kinds of things and she says to me what did you think now now is not the time in place she's pumped up full of adrenaline and now is not the time for me to give her a critical evaluation of of this gut aul performance and so I sidestepped the question but said something true I said ah it was such a treat to be here to see you do your thing you know I've been wanting to see you on the stage forever and it was so much fun to see you on the stage all

44:00 of that was true the next day when the adrenaline had come down and I called her up and said can I tell you what I thought about the play she goes yeah of course and I told her critically piece by piece what I thought about it and how bad it was we had a perfectly rational conversation about it didn't hurt her feelings the day before it would have really hurt her feelings so not everything has to be we mistake being honest with being honest now now I can't lie and I have to answer the question but it can answer it tomorrow when the conditions are better for that message to be received what is so Insidious or what is so harmful what is the long-term negative impact of creating that culture of lying within teams and within ourselves well there's a there's this there's this a psychological U um

44:45 phenomenon I guess called ethical fading uh which can grip an organization's culture where people within that culture become capable of making highly High highly unethical decisions believing they were well within their own ethical Frameworks right so extreme examples are things like pharmaceutical companies who have a patent on an essential drug and in order to meet or beat some Financial projection they raise the price of that essential drug 100% 500% 1,000% 1500% totally legal there's nothing illegal about that really unethical right and in organizations that suffer ethical fading it almost always if not always

45:34 starts from the top it's usually a leadership problem it comes from excessive amounts of pressure to hit certain short-term goals to the point where doing it ethically becomes more and more difficult and so what creates ethical fading is a series of things one of those things is um we we we rationalize right we look for ways to distance ourselves from the impact of our decisions we say things like it's what you got to do to get ahead it's what my bus wants um everyone's doing it it's the system I don't have a choice right um and there are ways we can disassociate our responsibility right so rationalizing is a big part of it another part is the old slippery slope you did it once you did it a little bit

46:19 it worked we raised the price 10% nobody even noticed great do it again do do 20% this time try 100% and it just keeps going and going and going going before you have full-blown ethical fading and um some of the things are excessive use of euphemisms again we're using language to disassociate ourselves in the impact of our decisions so for example you know um we in the United States would never torture but enhanced interrogation that sounds very appealing right or companies would never spy on their customers but data mining yeah no we're really into that right um we're just using different language to to mask the insidiousness of our real decisions like everybody talks about managing externalities but we don't talk about the damage we're doing to the people and cultures environments of the places where our offices and

47:04 factories are located why don't you have that conversation and so when you have enough of those things you ethical fading shows up where you now have real issues and in the extreme you have massive scandals sometimes it leads to illegal activity but usually it's just unethical scandals and when those things happen management is dragged out and they talk to the newspaper to the law and they always say the same thing which is we we broke no laws everything we do is legal no we don't have an issue with the law we have an issue with your ethics um but when you don't have when it's not full-blown it just becomes an incredibly uncomfortable and a horrible place to work that increases stress to the point where you'll do damage to your own health and you'll do damage to the way you treat your family because when you're into that kind of stress to violate your own ethics at work um

47:51 you're going to come home you're going to take it out on your your spouse and your kids you're going to kick the dog um you're not going to be motivated to do much except sitting on sit on the couch and watch TV you know so it has it has some pretty Insidious uh impact in the lives of human beings I was thinking of it as well in terms of romantic relationships one little white lie becomes another little white lie and then a couple of you know a year passes and you're so unaligned and so far from your truth that you're resentful that you're having to keep up with this set of Lies I mean we I've talked about it with a guest on this podcast before one one of mistakes I made in my relationship at the start was I would say yes to things that I didn't like doing yeah so I created this culture and this also this like expectation when my my partner thought I loved doing X

48:39 activity at 6:00 a.m. in the morning CU I'd always said yes and I'd always pretended to like it now I have to live out that life of something I do not enjoy doing because I lied at the start and the journey back is not always so easy when you've I I've made the same mistake on the other side which is after I broke up with someone when we maintained a friendship and I started dating somebody or at least started dating but I didn't want to hurt the feelings of this person I still care about that we broke up you know a couple months before um and so if I would avoid the conversation but if she said are you dating anybody I'd say no not really and it's not because I wanted to lie it's because I don't want to hurt her like the intention of course is positive but what I learned later is all of those little lies meant that sh she was

49:27 holding out hope that wasn't there and by the way I'm it's been done to me as well I'm holding out hope that's not there because someone didn't want to hurt my feelings and I would rather just have the uncomfortable conversation are you dating somebody you are okay well that hurts but I can heal I can move on and you know again this Young Generation because of all the reasons we've talked about and more seems to exhibit the traits of being very conflict avoidant very uncomfortable with uncomfortable um that has some impact that are sometimes funny quote unquote but

50:12 always tend to make somebody feel more lonely so for example and I've seen this happen I've heard about these stories so many times a a young employee who may feel they're in line for a raise but it's so uncomfortable to go to their boss and ask for a raise that they just quit that they would rather quit than have an uncomfortable conversation and then sometimes it is followed by a an angry email that says I'm undervalued you don't appreciate me you underpay me you know and and I've I've heard it happen so many times where the leadership is like what what we would have happily like I'm we we were either planning on giving you a raise we'd happy to give

50:58 you a raise you know and it's really uncomfortable to walk in your boss's office and be like hey I'm working really hard can I a raise please now the time you do get to quit is when you've had this conversation four five six times and you've seen nothing and had no feedback and had no impact then absolutely you quit and absolutely you say you undervalue me you under appreciate we've under underappreciate me we've had this conversation five or six times then it's their fault because they had all the information but again it's it's really funny how many young kids would they they would rather quit than have a difficult conversation or they'd rather break up than have a difficult conversation or Worse they'd rather go someone than break up with them because it's really uncomfortable to have a fight and a breakup and call each other

51:43 names it's much easier to just turn off all the social media un unfollow everywhere I know we've been dating for six months but I'm just going to now ignore every text ignore all your calls and think about it from the we talk about service think about the service or disservice we do to the other person for their their point of view it's like you got an a car accident it's like you were just killed it's like you just disappeared off the planet that is trauma because you're uncomfortable to have an uncomfortable conversation you would do that to so another person so service goes both ways which is I will make myself uncomfortable and have a difficult conversation even if I bumble it and screw it up and it ends up being a screaming match because that is a better option than

52:29 traumatizing a person where they have to believe that I've first of all that I've died because they can't get a hold of me in the panic and then when they realize I'm alive because they see me on Instagram that now I've destroyed their self-confidence how dare somebody do that to another human being because you're just a little uncomfortable of having an uncomfortable conversation where we can help is we can teach people how to have uncomfortable conversations that is a skill set we don't teach leaders how to have uncomfortable conversations we don't teach students how to have uncomfortable conversations we don't teach you know we can teach these things all over the place and I think it's I think it's a big gaping hole in curriculum we teach you know maths and we teach English but we don't teach social interaction we don't teach listening we don't we don't

53:15 teach how to have uncomfortable conversations we don't teach how to give and receive feedback you know now you tell me which is going to be more valuable for the rest of your life how to have a difficult conversation or trigonometry yeah and shouldn't we be you know isn't this shouldn't we be preparing people for life I had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast as the seasons have begun to change so has my diet and um right now I'm just going to be completely honest with you I'm starting to think a lot about slimming down a little bit because over the last couple of probably the last four or five months my diet has been pretty bad um and it started to show a little bit really over the last two months I go to the gym about 18 % of the time so I track it with 10 of my friends in a WhatsApp group in this tracker online

54:01 that we all use together we call it Fitness blockchain and I'm currently at 81% um so 81% of the days I've done a workout in the last 150 days right so I'm going to the gym about six times a week that's been a little bit impacted by the DI live tour but I'm trying to stick to it and so one of the things I'm doing now to reduce my calorie intake and trying to get back to being nutritionally complete in all I eat is I'm having the hule protein shake thank you hu for making a product that I actually like The Salted Caramel is my favorite I've got the banana one here which is the one my girlfriend likes but for me salted caramel is the one on that point of that new generation in the workplace and how they're they're exhibiting traits of being a little bit more cowardly in terms of having those

54:48 difficult conversations you made a video about Millennials in the workplace that did probably hundreds of millions of views I remember seeing on Facebook maybe 5 years ago and it just I think it had 50 million views on that one video but across YouTube it's got tens of millions of views on many many different videos um but I'm thinking now about that new generation that you've described that younger generation that genz generation that are emerging into the like postco world what is the workplace for them what how do I as a leader make sure that if I'm hiring jenzy and I've got a couple even in this room that work in my company what have we got to know about them and do to make sure that they Thrive stay motivated and achieve their goals this is my own bias I don't like the conversation of

55:33 strengths and weaknesses um you know it's the famous question you know in an interview what's your biggest weakness well I'm a perfectionist you know uh I don't like the conversations of strengths and weaknesses because um strengths often have liability I'm really confident okay in the wrong context you're arrogant right but weaknesses also have Silver Linings so for me I'm chronically disorganized I'm terrible right every system app I've works for like a week and then I'm back to being disorganized is that a good thing or a bad thing now for years I used to beat myself up for it and say it's a bad thing it's it's a terrible weakness but the reality is it's context so I was at this as a young entrepreneur I was at this networking event and I met this guy

56:19 who's like really impressed with what I had to say with my pitch and he's like Simon we have to do work together here's my business card call me let's do this and I lost the business card basically as soon as he gave it to me so anybody who was organized would be sending a text from the taxi or at least sending an email the next day not Yahoo over here I lost the business card there was no way for me to find out what this important piece of business would have led to because I lost the card two weeks later I found the business card at the bottom of a briefcase so I emailed him and said hey remember we met two weeks ago you know I'd love to reconnect and see if we can work together still he wanted to work with me more because he thought I was busy so strength or weakness the answer is it depends now in general yes it is a weakness it's a liability and it causes me great stress but not always is the point and so yes it's important for us

57:05 to understand our characteristics that we exhibit of which some of them in the in certain context are huge strength and some of the the exact same characteristics in the rung context are huge weaknesses right so it's very it's we have to be very careful when we label people or Generations as being strong or weak because the answer is it depends okay so that's the preface so when we talk about this Young Generation the the genz generation they exhibit many of the same character of six is the previous generation but they're quite different in the sense that they're very activist right so for example in the 1950s and 60s people hated their jobs back then too they just went to work every day and just suffered in Silence You Know by the time you get to the '

57:50 80s and 90s people hated their jobs but then they'd at least start talking around about it around the office saying you know this this job kind of sucks a little bit you know and then by the time you get sort of the 2000s people start speaking up to their bosses saying I think we should make it better to work here you know and now you're in this young generation and they're just like they're like standing up and quitting and like and I love it right and and and they organize they're much more you know the previous generation would like hashtag tweet my discontent as I'm sitting in my Uber on my way to brunch you know but this young generation gets out and organizes and comes together plus or minus it depends sometimes it's a huge strength the fact that they have that kind of energy but sometimes as we've talked about as well they also have the energy to quit instead of

58:35 having an uncomfortable conversation so strength or weakness it depends and so I think the way we have to approach all of these things is with empathy which is instead of uh uh deciding if it's a strength or weakness to try and understand where it comes from because I can say this generation is irresponsible and will quit before they ask for a raise or I can say why is it that they're quitting before they get a when they just need a raise what's Miss what's what's what happened between a and b in that thought in those two actions you know and I'm like oh they just missed the skill set oh we can totally figure that one out that one's an easy fix so I'm not labeling a whole person or a whole generation I'm rather recognizing that there's gaps of uh skills which we all have so when you ask me about any of the generations and they

59:21 all have strengths and they all have liabilities and depending on the time frame and the context sometime sometimes those strengths also become old-fashioned no longer necessary you know they can still cause frustration they can still cause confusion you know we're still looking through them at our through our own prisms of our own generation I've definitely caught myself doing it you know I do do it my goodness we never did that when we were kids you know when I was their age I'm actually saying that now but um I think the the the trial the the the the test is the practice of empathy which is another skill that we can teach that's missing how is this the the co experiment on the workforce and the workplace so how like Business Leaders or business owners need

1:00:07 to adjust in order to make sure we don't lose people and become an uncompelling unattractive place to work in this postco era and also on the point you talked about earlier about the importance of like we're social animals and we need that social connection and we're being kind of we're optimizing out of our Lives it feels to me like this remote working thing has has exacerbated the issue because we're you know for for young people you know I think that the office is one of the few institutions we have left where we are in person we no longer get dating we do that on apps food we don't go to restaurants anymore we just order Uber Eats and our work they're telling us is going to be done from Zoom I'm like what do we have left yeah lonely we going going to be lonely and it's not a coincidence that we see

1:00:53 Rising rates of depression anxiety suicide you know especially in younger Generations so you know it's not causal but it's there's definitely a correlation you know it reminds me of

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