A critical step in a person's development process is finding their why. So how does finding one's why align with the science of strengths? To answer that question we asked the best-selling author of Find Your Why, Simon Sinek.
Simon talks about how he leverages his own top five strengths to inspire and connect with others. He also shares his best insights on how to lead with strengths and how to lead with purpose. How would you connect strengths philosophy to your why philosophy? The why is the foundation of the house and the strengths are how I choose to build it.
They're not in opposition. They work in concert. The why is just that. It is foundational. It never changes.
And it's not something that you apply. It's not a doing. You know.
It's the thing that inspires you. It's the reason you get out of bed. And the question is like, okay, I believe in this thing. This is who I am.
Now what? And I think knowing your strength is essential because, you know, the better you understand yourself and how to make those things strong, you're more likely to live in balance with your why. So I see them as working together.
One are actions. Strengths are actions. Things I do.
A why is what I believe. So as I said, the why is the foundation of the house, and the strengths are the things that I use to build upon that foundation. By the way, speaking of strength finders, I don't believe in strengths or weaknesses either. Say more about that.
I just don't believe in them. I think you have characteristics and attributes, and depending on the circumstance, those things manifest as strengths or weaknesses. So everything that you've defined as a strength, If I'm really good about putting myself in a situation where those things will reveal themselves as strengths, we will call them strengths. But if I put them in a situation where they're really not helpful, every single one of those things will manifest as weaknesses. And so my job is not to build on my strengths and work on my weaknesses.
That's silly. My job is to know my strengths and put myself in situations where I am strong. I know the characteristics and attributes that make me me. Ideation is neither strength nor weakness. It is a way of operating.
You know, restorative is neither strength nor weakness. It is a way of seeing the world. And if I navigate right, people will say, oh my god, you're so... those are such strengths. I'm like, but if I had made different choices, which sometimes I do, those things are not helpful at all.
So one thing that I... I think of the many things I've gotten wrong in a career, I think one of the things I got right was I learned to... know those things.
Simon, your number one strength, ideation, comes out right at the end of the infinite game. In fact, in the acknowledgements, you start with just two words, ideas evolve. Can you talk more about why you put that sentence in there? Well, I think it's just the way I approach my life and my work, which is I never think of myself as an expert. I think of myself as a student in everything.
Sometimes I'm remedial and sometimes I'm advanced, but there's always more to learn. And for anybody who's had a big idea and you say, where did that idea come from? You know, there's maybe an epiphany moment where you sort of put the pieces together. But all of those things, it's an evolution.
There's no other way to put it. You know, people ask me, how long did it take you to write Start With Why? And my answer is every day of my life up until that day, you know.
And so for me, All ideas are simply moments in time on a journey and none of them are complete. Now, when you look at your strengths, four of them are thinking themes. But as you've told me before, you don't consume a lot of information via reading.
But yet you're consuming a great deal of information. What is it that inspires you to do that or how are you doing this? It's not a question of inspiration.
It's a question of survival. It's true. I struggle to read. I have pretty bad ADHD. so my whole life I've struggled to read.
And if I go back to, you know, high school, college, you know, not reading, it's probably going to hurt your chances of graduating. And so I'm a great believer that the solutions we find to the strengths, sorry, I'm a great believer that the solutions we find to the struggles we have as kids become our strengths as adults. And so I had to pass school.
And if I'm not learning from the book. I have to find another way to learn the information. And so through survival instinct, I got very good at asking questions and I got very good at listening. I got very good at reflective listening.
Is this what you're telling me? Because I had a test to pass. And so I consume a tremendous amount of information.
I take in an insane amount of information. I read articles a lot. I read short form stuff.
I read the news. I read the newspaper. But I learn best from conversations. And I'm an oral learner, you know, in my ears.
I don't really take in information that doesn't really stick when I read anyway. So, yeah, people think that because I write or because I have ideas that I must read every book. I love the idea of reading books. I've started a lot of them, but I don't really finish them.
Where do you get your inspiration for your biggest ideas? Well, I mean, all my life is, all my work, all my work is semi-autobiographical. And so, like everybody, I have curiosities.
I have frustrations. I have weaknesses. I have, you know, triggers. And...
In my own journey of taking myself on and personal growth, I sort of pay attention to the world or trying to make the world a better place. I mean, I have frustrations about the world too. And so it always runs through the filter of, is this practical and is this useful? And does this help me explain the world around me?
And so I'm trying to understand the world I live in like everybody's trying to understand the world that we live in. But that's what you just said right then, that it's, did you say semi-Semi-autobiographical? Yeah.
Yeah. Say more about it. that. So is it what you're sharing with the world, what you're learning is what's happening to you in your own personal life? Yeah, of course.
I mean, that's most people. That's most authors. You know, anybody who wrote a self-help book is probably starting with themselves, you know, probably, you know, you ask any psychology major, why'd you become a psychology major? It's usually at some level because they want to learn about themselves or they're struggling with something.
You know, I'm, I think we're most... we're more passionate for things that are personal. It's hard to manufacture passion for something you don't care about. So the work that helps me make sense of my world, the ideas that help me make sense of my world, I think the reason they resonate is because they help other people make sense of their world too.
But yeah, it usually starts with my own curiosities or frustrations or desire to understand the madness of this world that we live in. I mean, you have communication in your top five as well. People's communication.
They share everything. And in some of your writings, some of your books, you share very deep things about your life, how you feel about things. Talk about where that comes from.
Well, I process out loud. You know better than I do how this works. Some people think out loud, and you have to be very careful with those people because they're not necessarily giving instructions or conclusions.
They're just thinking. And some people process quietly. And when we interrupt that process, it starts again. And so we have to give them time to process. Well, I think out loud.
And so I think when I'm communication, my friends make fun of me. They say that I narrate my life. Like we'll be walking down the street and I'll be like, I need to get milk. And they're like, now? I'm like, no, I can go whenever.
Like, then why'd you say it? I'm like, because I need milk. They're like, yeah, but why'd you say it?
I'm like, because I need milk. Like they don't understand why it came out of my mouth that it's not an instruction or something to do. It's just the thoughts come out and sometimes I write them down.
How do you make sure that you're not oversharing? I mean, sometimes I think one step ahead. Not always.
Sometimes I say things that I probably shouldn't. Now, you also have futuristic. And it means that you're always thinking in the future.
How far in the future do you think? Too far, usually. Because I'll say things and people think I want it tomorrow or for next week and I don't. I'm pretty far ahead probably at least a year or two. Because for me it's like it's the chain of events that I so adore.
You know, there are people who are better equipped than me to sort of like plan the exact route of what step to put into place next. I'm thinking if we get that step right wherever it goes and you get that step right wherever it goes and you get that step right wherever it goes, we'll end up here. That's interesting to me.
That's where I want to get to. And so I need very, very high-functioning operators next to me because I couldn't tell you what step to take tomorrow. But I'll tell you where all those steps will lead to. You've talked about that with your ideation before. There's a great quote that you have that when you partner wild ideators with people who can get things done.
You can do remarkable things. Who's that person for you? I mean, there's no person for me. I have a team of people and I know to... put people who are good at getting things done near me.
And so I have multiple people who I'm proud to have on my team who are better at getting things done than me. Was there a time when you were doing, wow, ideating and you didn't have those people so things kind of felt stuck? That's what led to the crash that produced Start With Why, which is I had Peter Principled out pretty early because I had big ideas of where I wanted to go and had no clue how to get it done. And that's a bad combination.
You know, when you're a small business owner, and you're running on force of personality that can only go so far. And you become a victim of your own success because, you know, you max out your own ability, which comes pretty quickly. You know, there's only 24 hours in a day for everyone.
It's the great equalizer. And a total inability to build structure around myself. And so it's going to collapse fast. And so I had to learn to surround myself with people who understand structure a lot better than I do.
I like working in structure. But I need help to build it. Speaking of ideas today, what are some of the biggest ideas that you're working on right now?
So I'm fascinated by friendship right now. Why? Well, if you think about it, there's an entire industry to help us be better leaders.
There's an entire industry to help us be better parents. There's an entire industry to help us eat better, exercise better, even how to help you with your marriage. But there's no industry to help us be better friends. And you look at some of the challenges that we're facing in the world today, you know, we're seeing rise in anxiety, depression, ability to cope with stress, manage stress, in the worst cases, the rise in suicide, even the obsession with longevity. And you look at all those subjects and you realize friendships is the solution to every single one of those things.
Absolutely every single one of them. Friendship is the ultimate biohack. And yet, we don't really work very hard on our friendships.
Most people think they're good friends. But if you peel back the onion just a little bit, you know, it's like... Like, well, would you cancel on a friend for work?
Would you cancel on work for a friend? Oh, but my friends will understand. So the last time one of your friends got depressed, what did you do? Did you just send them a text or did you go over to their house, get into bed with them and watch movies all day and just be depressed with them and make them feel not alone? You know, and you start to realize we could do a lot better.
And if you just sort of look, you look at sort of marriages, right? If you take the people you admire, the most successful marriages, the most successful partnerships, and you ask them, I so admire you guys. What is the secret?
And they'll all say the same thing. It's hard work and willing to do the work. Then how come no one's willing to do the work for friendship?
Friends just happen and we don't invest in them. If you have struggles in your marriage, you work on it. You work through it.
You don't just default to abandoning the marriage. But it's amazing how many times we walk away from friendships because someone violated some trust or something happened. You're like, well, I can't be friends with them. And I think great friendships, like any great marriage, you do the hard work. But the problem is there's no one, there's no guidance to help us.
And so I've had to learn myself how to be a better friend. And like all my work, you know, I've learned so much. And my friendships have become better since I've prioritized the work to have better friendships. I feel less lonely.
I feel less isolated. All the things that we all struggle with. even how to make friends, you know, which a lot of people struggle with at all ages.
And so I felt it's time to write that. What are your big ideas for how people make friends? Well, it should come as no surprise, but vulnerability is one of them.
Um, uh, I think if you look at, um, sort of, uh, there's something in, in, there's something with celebrities called a parasocial relationship. So you can read about a celebrity in a, in People magazine or see them on TMZ or something. And we know a lot about their lives.
We know who they're dating. We know where they live. We know they're on vacation. We see their vacation pictures, whether they want us to or not.
We know a lot about them. And sometimes we start to feel connected to them. And it's called a parasocial relationship where I feel like you're speaking directly to me, but you've never heard of me.
And so I feel connected to you, but you're not connected to me. It's a one-way relationship. It's not necessarily unhealthy, but gone too far, it can be very unhealthy.
And we, there's a strange, we sort of treat modern friendships kind of like that a little bit because now everybody's a bit of a celebrity. Because we put our lives and cured our lives through social media. So everybody can see what we like, where we've been, what our vacation was, what we're eating, what we're wearing, how I like to style myself.
And so people feel connected to you based on what you're putting out there and they start to feel like we know each other. And so if you go on a date or make a friend, we sort of, we Google each other. We look each other up on the Instagram.
You know, we get a flavor. And so we start to find connection where there may or may not be one. And so we think we're helping because we're learning about them. But what makes friendship...
is learning about those things in real life. What makes friendship is the bumbling, fumbling journey of getting to know someone. That's what creates friendship because it's vulnerable and you don't project on somebody. I mean, we've all been on a first date where they say a few things that we like and we're projecting all of our wants, needs, and desires.
We're like, oh my God, I found the person that I should be with after one date. You know, three weeks later, that shatters. Same kind of thing.
And I think... I think we've forgotten or are resistant to the bumbling, fumbling journey that is so magical to actually making friends. There are a lot of challenges structurally on making friends, these online behaviors that you're talking about. Where does it all go if those friendships aren't protected, if people don't work at them?
What does it do to society? Well, I think friendships become superficial. So, you know, it's... And I'm talking about deep meaningful friendship. And there's levels of friendship.
I mean, we all have friends that are fun, but I'm not calling them if I'm in a bad place. I mean, I like hanging out with them. That's fine.
There's nothing wrong with that. I'm talking about deep meaningful relationships. And I think a lot of people, and excuse younger in particular, who will admit they have friends and they love hanging out with their friends, but they would never trust their friends with them. deep, hard feelings, or they would cancel on their friends, or they would admit that their friends would cancel on them if something better came along.
And I think when too many of our friendships are at that level, you can have some of those. That's not a problem. It's kind of like you can have some chocolate cake.
You just can't make every meal chocolate cake, you know? And when too many of our relationships don't go deep enough and there's no vulnerability, loneliness sets in. And for a social animal, loneliness is about the single worst thing you can do to somebody. I'll tell you about an amazing experiment that was done that sort of captures this.
So much of our understanding about addiction, for example, comes from an experiment that was done, I think, in the 50s or 60s, where they put a rat in a cage and they gave it plain water and they gave it drug-laced water. Not surprisingly, the rat discovered the drug-laced water, preferred it, drank so much of it until it died. right, got addicted to the drug-glazed water.
And this was our understanding of addiction from this experiment all those decades ago and how it works and how insidious it is. But there was a scientist, I think his name was Bruce Alexander, he said, hold on, the experiment's flawed. Like human beings, rats are social animals.
So if you make a rat lonely and leave it by itself, yeah, it's gonna get addicted, right? So he recreated the experiment. where he put lots of rats in the cage.
And they had mazes and wheels and they were social and they were having kids and all those things. And they had two waters, the plain one and the drug-laced one. They all tried both.
And they tried enough of the drug-laced one to get addicted, but they can see from the data how much they consumed that the amount of drug-laced water they took went straight down and they only drank the plain water. And so it starts to lend some evidence to the fact that... that when we are social and when we live in community and we have good friends, we're actually less likely to become addicted.
And I think this is very significant now if you think about social media and the criticism that social media is getting for how addictive it is, especially to a young brain, which is all true by the way, but it raises the question, is it the social media that's making the kids lonely? Or if kids had friends, all of us, if we were better at better at making friends and better at working on our friendships, do we actually become less addictable, less susceptible to addiction? And I would contend that if we learn to be good friends and if we teach our children how to be good friends, they're still going to have access to all of those drug-laced waters, all of the cell phones and social media. And though they are still dangerous, we may be less susceptible when we live in community and have good friends. Bowling Alone, Robert Putman, he has the theory that Things like bowling leagues, unions, that the very breakdown of those is actually contributing to this.
Is he right? Yeah, I mean, same idea. Which is basically what he's saying is we took away the rat park and we put everybody in a cage by themselves.
And instead of drug-laced water, we gave them social media and a cell phone. And so you see people going through sort of, I would call, normal life traumas. Getting dumped, breaking up, all that kind of stuff. And we go on. It's online and we cry to the camera by ourselves in our room.
It's not very vulnerable to cry by yourself. And I don't know how many takes you make. You know, is that one take or is that three takes? You know, but, you know, given the benefit of the doubt that it's one take and we say what happened and I just want to share my truth and I just want to put it out there and I love you guys by yourself in your room.
Now say those exact words to a friend and that's hard. That's vulnerable. It's easier to say them by yourself. So I think we need to do that.
I have a rule with all my friends and all my close friends know it, which is no crying alone. I don't care what's going on in your life. You know, you had a death in the family, you're just stressed out of your mind, you had a fight with your spouse, I don't care what it is, you're just overwhelmed, the news is getting to you, whatever it is, but you just find yourself a little bit sort of overwhelmed by something. The rule is, it doesn't have to be me, just pick up the phone and just say, do you have a minute and cry.
And so. My friends are all pretty good about it. We're all pretty good about obeying that.
And it makes a huge difference. You know, it's amazing because there was a study that said that one of the things that makes content go most viral is when it's something that displays that you've been victimized in some way. So actually displaying those emotions appears to get more attention.
Do you think there's some sort of spiraling we're doing because of that? Well, it's sort of like emotional clickbait, right? You know, am I...
You know what it's the equivalent to? It's the equivalent to people putting together messages to say, happy birthday, dad, on Instagram with a lovely, you know, carousel of my dad holding me when I was a baby. Dad's not on Instagram.
Why don't you just pick up the phone and call your dad and wish him happy birthday? Send a cake, you know? I don't understand the need to make a video to say, I've never made a video to say happy birthday to either of my parents. I like to call them on their birthdays and send them a birthday card and, you know, do something special for them. That makes them feel special.
So I think it's something equivalent, which is it's some sort of weird, you know, sort of like, I don't know what it is, public display of I'm a good person. I don't know what it is. But is it also maybe their way of saying that I want to scream from the mountaintop how much I love my mom or my dad? Did you share it with everyone that there is some goodness there?
So just do that second. Some of these are pretty sophisticated things that they spent a lot of time doing. And sure, scream from the mountain top so much you love your dad. I think that's lovely. So long as your dad knows it first or your mom knows it first.
Like I said, I think we forget that the display of vulnerability is supposed to create connection with the person with whom we're displaying it. It's not supposed to. It's not supposed to attract sympathy or attention from people who we don't know or barely know.
That's not deep, meaningful friendship. And it's not going to form deep, meaningful friendships because they'll look at it for 30 seconds. They won't even get to the end of the reel. They'll click like and they're on to the next.
And your feelings are not affirmed how much you love your dad or your mom based on how many hearts you got and how many thumbs up you got. People must really know I love my parents a lot, you know. I think that you're sort of making the point of that sort of strange parasocial world we live in. With Futuristic, you've inspired thousands in painting a vision or at least understanding the future.
Has there ever been a time when you could see something so clear in the future, but you really struggled to bring people along or land that point about what the future will look like? So let me change the question slightly, which is... When I'm articulating a vision of the future, it's not a question whether I'm articulating it right.
And by the way, everybody needs to work on communicating clearly. It's a learnable, practicable skill. We don't learn it.
We're not taught it. So it's kind of left to luck. Some people have the innate ability.
Some don't. Some work on it. Some don't. And there are a lot of frustrated people with great ideas because nobody can hear what they're trying to say.
Well, you bear some responsibility. But the bigger issue is we pick the wrong audiences, which is, and I learned this, thank goodness, pretty early. Two things that have been profound in the spreading of my ideas and my own career are two things that I treat like religion.
One is starting with why. I learned to stop talking about what I do, and I started talking about what I believe, and the law of diffusion of innovations, that all populations sift across the standard deviation, the bell curve. high performers in the population, you have low performers, and you have an average, of course.
And the law of diffusion says the first two and a half percent of the population are your big idea people. Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. The next 12 or 13% of your population are your early adopters, the people who are willing to suffer an inconvenience, pay a premium to be a part of something that reflects their beliefs, stand in line for 48 hours to see the new Star Wars movie when you can just go two weeks later and just buy a ticket and go in.
But for them it's worth it, right? Then you have the bell, the majority, 68%, and then the last 16% are the laggards, which is the only reason they make any changes because they have no choice. What the law of diffusion says is that if you want to have mass market success or mass market acceptance of an idea, you need 15% to 18% market penetration. And a social phenomenon happens called a tipping point. And it just goes.
And it makes perfect sense. Because the early majority will not try something new until somebody else has tried it first. If you ignore the law of diffusion, you'll always get about 10%.
You know, oh, I love her. She gets it. Oh, he's an idiot. He doesn't get it. Get what?
That's the point. So it's that chasm that Jeffrey Moore calls that 10% to that 15, 18% that matters so much. And so I learned to stop talking to the average, to the bell, to the majority. And I learned to seek out and only talk to early adopters.
So early in my career, I've got no money. I'm living hand to fist. Like I need every client I can get, you know. And a guy had heard about me in my work with this new idea called Start With Why.
I remember exactly where I was standing when he called. And he literally picked up the phone and he says, hey, I got your number from blah-de-blah. Convince me why I should hire you. Now, anybody who says convince me why I should hire you has told me they're not an early adopter.
They have told me that they exist in the early majority and they want me to take all the accountability for any advice I'm going to give. So I said, don't. And I got very good, especially when I had no money, when the stress is higher, at saying no to money with the wrong people.
and saying yes to less money with the right people. And what ended up happening is the early adopters did more to help me spread my ideas than anything I could have done. None of my books were ever reviewed by any major newspaper.
They still haven't been. I've only been on national television twice and it came after my third book, second or third book. So, you know, my work was already out there before I even got an invitation to go on national television. Like, I've not relied on PR or any of that stuff.
It was the absolute adherence to... the law of diffusion. And so people with big ideas, even if you bumble and fumble the communication of it, if you talk to the early adopters, they're more likely to get it.
They're more likely to help you articulate it. They're more likely to support you. And most important, they're more likely to tell somebody else when you're not there and they can fairly represent your ideas when you're not in the room.
So you're saying that the difference between being heard and actually somebody listening is who your audience is. And you figured it out when you say early on in your career, Was it right at that moment when he said, pitch me this idea, or had that idea been evolving even before that? The idea existed, the whole concept of the golden circle and start with why existed.
And, you know, word was starting to spread and, you know, the early adopters were talking about it and he got wind. And he wanted to be a part of it, which is cool. But he wasn't the right mindset for the right time.
I'll get him. I'll just get him later. So I think one of the things that people who are future oriented.
I think one of the huge mistakes they make is they try and convince everybody and I don't. I've said for years I'll only talk to people who want to listen. If you don't listen, I'm not going to talk. I'm not here to twist your arm and convince you of anything.
I'm not in the convincing business. I'm in the inspiring business. And if somebody says, I think you're an idiot, I'm like, okay, well then I'm not for you.
I don't know what to tell you. It happened early in my career. Where I was on a stage, it was one of the first times I did a big audience.
It was like a thousand people. And they opened it up to Q&A. And the first question, this guy raises his hand. And he says, have you ever run a multi-billion dollar corporation? I said, no.
He says, have you ever led a large team? I said, no. He goes, well, I think all of your ideas are naive.
And I don't think any of them would actually work in the real world. And I looked at him and said, so don't do them. Next question.
Like, what do you want from me? I'm not going to fight with you. If you think I'm a moron, then ignore me.
Like, that's okay. I'm not going to take it personally. And so I got very, very good at learning to spot and listen for the people who are at least more open to something different. And people would say, you're onto something.
It's not perfect, but you're onto something. Those are the people I wanted to work with. Those are the people that I would keep waxing philosophical with.
The people who didn't expect it to be perfect, but they liked what I was trying to do. And I think that's really important. Finding the people who wanted to listen not trying to convince people who didn't but that's tough I mean when there are people with ideation They have so many different ideas that sometimes they come up with bad ideas and of course there's rejection in that process But how did you sort of develop that?
over time or be able to take feedback like that where somebody's saying that to you on stage and saying You don't have these particular credentials. So why should I buy into any of this? Why did you have that come from?
Go more extreme. Let's say I'm standing on the stage talking about my faith and somebody says to me, there's no God. What, am I gonna have a fight with him about the existence of God? You believe what you believe, I believe what I believe. I'm not gonna take the fight onto the next.
Like, go extreme. It makes perfect sense. I have my belief set. You're not gonna change my belief set. And if my belief set is different from your belief set, I'm not here to convince you and I don't need you to convince me.
I'm open to constructive criticism. I'm open to having you push me and make my ideas better. But if you just want to flat out reject based on your own ideas of how you see the world, you be you my friend. Like I got no beef but that's not my job.
I'm looking for people who are open. You have strategic number three. Is there anyone that you study or follow that does strategy that you really admire? So strategy I think is a fantastically fascinating concept.
Please. misunderstood. Most people don't know what strategy is. Tacticians all think they're...
Can you say more about what that means right then? When you said most people don't know what strategy is. Yeah. Where's the confusion? Strategy is future and not everybody thinks in the future.
And so tacticians who are great at the here and now all think they understand strategy, which I think is funny. Strategists know they don't understand tactics. I tend to find that futurists and sort of big strategic thinkers, they all know that their big weakness is the details.
Where the detail people all think that they understand details and big picture, which they don't. And this is why teams are great. This is why teams are great.
And this is why I like partnerships of different personalities and different strengths. But strategy is a difficult to understand concept that everybody thinks they're good at. Most people aren't you know people with strategic they often have plans for plans or they can see a hundred different ways to get To one place.
Yeah, what is that like for you? so Early in my career. I think to this day. I'm very often accused of being Unfocused because I'm I'm constantly changing and adapting to something different and new And it looks like I have shiny object syndrome, which sometimes I do. Not to belittle that.
I definitely have that. But I'm actually more focused than most because I'm so fixated on a destination way far away that I'm trying to find the best route to get there. And I'm willing to change routes. So if you come down to 5,000 feet, it looks like I don't know where I'm going.
But if you go up to 30,000 feet, you can see I know exactly where I'm going. I just don't know how to get there. So I'm... I'm very agnostic as to the route that I have to take. Like I never wanted to be a public speaker or an author.
Like neither of those things were in my plan. I wasn't one of those people who thought he had a book in him. You know, like I never wanted to write a book.
And being a public speaker was the last thing I wanted to do with my life. I like being behind the scenes. I like being, I like, you know, knowing the influencers. That's my happy place is in the shadows.
The fact that I'm in the front of the proscenium is just funny. But whatever, that was the route that was presented and it was a very efficient route to help me get my ideas out there and it worked really well, so batter up. So I'm very, very agnostic as to the route that I have to take as long as it moves the ball down the field.
That was how your why, your purpose changed early on in life. Is it changing now? My why, no one's why ever changes. You either live in balance with it or you don't.
Like you are who you are. You are fully formed by your mid to late teens. You are a product of your upbringing. The experiences you had, the opportunities, the people who believed in you, the coach who saw something in you that nobody else saw, the trauma that you experienced make you you.
And your why is fully formed. Now, the choices you make for the rest of your life, the friends you keep, the jobs you take, the decisions you make, are they consistent with your why or not? And that's the hard part.
So, no, your why never changes whether you obey it or not, whether you use the lens of your why. That's a different conversation. Most people.
Most people don't. But how about how you are serving your why? Is that changing? Yeah, of course. Of course, of course, of course.
But how? Well, I mean, I have to change with technology, with taste, with politics, with time. You know, there's a reason. If you look at the lack of adaptation, right, it's embarrassing that Apple invented iTunes and not the music industry. It's embarrassing that Amazon invented the e-reader, Kindle, and not the publishing industry.
It's embarrassing that a startup called Netflix pioneered streaming, not the television and movie industry. That's because they're so fixated on how we've always done things. They're fixated on the here and now and protecting the business models and the products that they have that they literally fail to adapt for the future state. And they usually end up playing catch up or going out of business entirely. You know, Blockbuster was the 800-pound gorilla.
It was the only significant national... movie rental company and when Netflix was a little startup they were pioneering something called subscription You know, we knew streaming was coming, but the technology wasn't good enough yet So they started with you know You could they would send DVDs to your house and you keep them as long as you wanted, right? You could have three DVDs at three movies at a time and the CEO of Blockbuster could see the writing on the wall and he went to the board and said I think we need to I think we need To experiment with subscription as a model and the board said no because they made 12% of their revenues from late fees. Well, one of the biggest companies in the country doesn't exist anymore. And so just because you're big doesn't mean you're going to last.
It just means you're big. That's all it means. So I think the ability to adapt and adjust for the times and stay fixated on the very distant future is a better survival mechanism.
When you're writing a book or even an article, and you first stare at that blank page, what do you do to overcome page one? So I have a trick, which is I start writing and I start writing like most people, which is I try to make a rational case and I start writing and then I finish the piece and then I delete the first paragraph, almost always. And it's a much better piece because the first paragraph is us trying to ramp up and the real writing, the real idea set starts to happen later.
And I look at other people's writing. I'm like, oh, they just deleted the first paragraph. it'd be a great piece.
So I don't need to figure out a hack to get to the second paragraph. I just get to the second paragraph and delete the first. But when I'm staring at a blank page, I have to have at least an inkling of an idea of something I want to share or write about.
You often talk about the importance of trust. How do you use your communication to build trust? I think that... Everybody attempts to use communication to build trust.
The question is, is it effective or not? You know, building trust in business, in personal life, in any, it's all the same thing. It's human being and human being.
And when we make it all rational, it doesn't build trust. And when we're willing to take risk and share vision, sharing vision, sharing future, your vision of future orientation, that's vulnerable. Because people could not share that vision.
And so it takes a risk to put it out there. When you talk about what you have done, you talk about your credentials, that's low risk, right? Like I went to Harvard and got a PhD.
And I've been working in this company for 10 years and fastest growing executive. And look how many clients I've helped build their portfolios and billions and millions of dollars, blah, blah, blah. So what we're doing is sort of trying to make people feel at ease, I guess, with working with us.
But there's no risk in that. There's no vulnerability in that. right? Putting out a bunch of credentials versus somebody who says, you know, I wake up every single morning with a very clear vision of the world I want to live in. I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do.
And I've been doing it this way and I've had success bringing along people to help build that vision. I built a business all with an attempt to drive towards that. Now that's...
hugely vulnerable because you'd be like, nope, don't want to live in that world, right? But what it does is if people do want to live in that world, that's deeply emotional. All the other stuff is rational.
Convincing, its very nature is rational. I will prove to you. That's a formula. Literally, it's a proof. It's science.
Where if you're willing to share something vulnerable, like future states that you imagine in terms so clear, it's like they can see the movie that you're describing. it's deeply emotional and much more likely to create an emotional connection with you, which is also called trust. What do you say to those executives that are a bit more robotic and you say to them, you need to show that vulnerability and they struggle and say, it's just not in me. What do you say to them to overcome that? I mean, I take them out of the work context.
I'm saying, do you tell your kids you love them? Do you tell your spouse you love them? Or do you think, you know, on the day you said I do, I'll let you know if it changes.
You know, it's like. Do you think it's important to tell your kids you love them? Yeah, but this is work.
It's not my children. It's not my family. It's work. I go, okay.
It's human beings. You want people to trust you. Trust doesn't know.
Like the human brain doesn't suddenly go into work mode or personal mode. The human brain is constantly scanning, you know, can I be vulnerable to this person or do I have to keep my guard up with this person? Constantly in fight or flight, you know, sort of evaluation mode. You might think that, but that's not how the brain works.
And if you're willing to accept that, that we're a very old legacy machine working in a very modern world, and you understand those legacy systems, then you learn to adapt. Now, that doesn't mean you operate exactly the same way in your personal life as you do in your professional life. That would be unprofessional.
You have to be emotionally professional. You can't sit at work and be like, I'm having a bad day. You can't do that.
It's emotionally unprofessional. But you can say, I'm struggling today. I'm having a bit of a...
an off day, so please just be a little bit patient with me, you know? But I don't try and convince anybody. I sort of, I'll talk about what I'm willing to do.
I'll talk about what's worked and hasn't worked for me. And if it's somewhat appealing to them, I'm willing to hold their hand on the bumpy road if it's uncomfortable for them and show them some baby steps that they can take along the way. But, you know, it's like the old joke, you know, how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
One. but the light bulb has to really want to change. You know, it's like the first stage is, it's all them, not me.
So I can only help, but they have to take the first step. Now you have restorative in your top five as well. Those are the world's problem solvers. When people call you because they've got a big problem that they need to solve, what kind of problems do they call on you about?
I mean, big is relative, right? You know, what my niece and nephew will call me about. are very different than what other people call me, but they're big problems, you know? Issues at school, you know?
Sure. Fights with other kids, you know? It's like, it's all relative. I mean, it's a lot of people, the thing that I love, and I guess it appeals to my restorative nature and my ideation nature, I love it when people call me with things that I know nothing about. Those are my favorite, where I'm like, I...
like those are my favorite um because i get to think and thinking's fun um and so i like it when they tell me about the struggles that they're having at work i like it when they they have market challenges i like it when they have you know supply chain issues stuff that's like not necessarily in my wheelhouse somebody once described me which i kind of like they said i'm like a brain attachment like they i help them see things that they can't see themselves they just like to attach me to their brain and so um Some of the people who call me, they like to just wax philosophical about like, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I'm doing, and I'm just sort of there to help them see it differently or frame it differently. Those are really fun. And how do you position yourself in terms of either solving it kind of yourself or giving them the space to solve it on their own? How do you do that? I mean, I guess it goes with the ideation, right?
Which is, I'm very clear, I don't think I'm right and I don't think I have answers. I just have a point of view. I have a perspective.
and my goal is to offer that perspective to help them perhaps see a different perspective and to maybe sometimes ideate with them to come up with what we think is probably a good solution but uh um you know i think i've learned to stop saying you should do this and i've learned to say this is how i this is how i see it um um the way i dispense advice has changed over the years What inspired that? I think it's more effective. People are more open if you share something without any pressure behind it. You should do this.
It's kind of judgy. Nobody likes to be told that we should be doing anything. You should drink more water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or shut up.
Those are kind of the two responses. You should exercise more. Oh, don't remind me. So I think learning to... disconnect myself from the advice that I give or talk about it strictly from my point of view makes people much more open to consider those things.
You mentioned friendships, one of the biggest problems that you're working on right now. What are some others? I think that the new world order is fascinating.
You know, I think how the world works since the Soviet Union collapsed, which we haven't quite figured out. You know, I don't think the United States or the West has really... understood Cold War 2.0 and the world we're currently living in and how to adapt our old legacy systems for the new world.
I find that endlessly fascinating. I like problems that there's literally no right solution and no one person could ever get it right. It can only be solved through a team effort.
The bigger the problem and the more people required to weigh in, those are the best. The world order is about as big as I can get right now. I have a colleague that once said he also has restorative and he said, the bigger the problem and the more screwed up it is, the more I like it. Yeah, that's the same for me. Another thing that my colleague has said to me about restorative is that sometimes the problem identification can almost be too negative for others to take on.
Do you ever experience that? Do you ever have, here's a problem that we could help, here's a problem, etc., where That might not be as energizing to others as it is for you? It's usually the opposite.
It's sometimes the problems that they bring me I don't find energizing. Oh, interesting. It's how to squeeze a little extra margin. I'm like, I don't really care. Is it because the problem's too small or too easy to figure out?
Because it's inconsequential. It serves a small group of people for no value to the greater good. The problems that I like serve a greater good.
The problems I like serve the maximum number of people. The problems I like solve very, very, very, very complex problems that I can't solve by myself, that I don't even understand. I can't even wrap my head around half of it, let alone come up with a solution.
I think sort of my dirty secret, which I think is really, you know, I was an okay student, you know. I think my graduating GPA from college was, I think, a 2.97. Like, solid B-ish, I guess.
B-ish? I don't know, B-ish. you know I was an okay student um I didn't I wasn't very good at I had to be very careful about the classes I selected if I took classes that were book heavy I was gonna die so I was very careful to take classes that were good professors where I wrote papers my worst grades were all where I took it based on the workload uh which was stupid uh because they had bad professors uh and my best grades were the where I chose it where I ignored workload and I chose the competence of the professor and And that I could write papers instead of take tests because I wasn't good at taking tests, but I could write a paper. So, you know, I think my sort of my dirty secret is like I'm very comfortable being the idiot in the room.
I'm very comfortable not knowing what's going on and saying, I don't know. I've been in rooms with executives where they're all nodding and saying yes and they all have MBAs and went to fancy schools and some consultant and this actually happened, some consultants giving some big presentation and they're all going through the deck and they're all nodding and I'm the first one to be like, so sorry, so sorry. I know I'm the only person in here without an MBA but I don't understand what you're saying.
Can you just say it in different like dumber terms so that I can understand? I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And the consultant will be like, oh. Try to explain it again.
I'm like, I'm so sorry. You're saying A plus B equals C, but the logic of presenting is A plus B equals D. I'm sure it's me.
I'm so sorry. And one by one, all the executives go, yeah, I don't understand either. Well, it took the idiot to say something because nobody wanted to be humiliated. And so because I see myself as a student and I don't try and pretend to be an expert, I've learned to be very comfortable saying I don't know or I don't understand. And it turns out a lot of people don't know or don't understand on a daily basis.
And so I think one of the greatest things anybody can learn is to say, I don't know where I need help. Or can somebody please explain this to me? And sometimes it backfires. Sometimes you'll get humiliated. But, you know, them's the lumps, you know?
The benefits outweigh the detriments. Self-assurance is your number six theme. And self-assurance, of course, people are comfortable in their own skin. But they also are...
contrarians and they kind of go against the grain. You seem to do that a lot in your books, in your writing, and a lot of things that you say, or like in a moment like that. Can you talk more about that and how you get energy from things like that?
I think any contrarian, I'm not a contrarian because I don't, I don't, I've never viewed myself as a contrarian. Contrarians, and I've worked with contrarians, contrarians disagree with everything no matter what. Everything is like, it's, it's frustrating.
And I, I'm, Simon is a story of my life. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't have that.
I don't have the need to disagree with everything that's being said just, just to be contrarian, you know? Oh, let me take the point up as a point of view. Please don't, you know?
But I'm okay questioning the logic on the table. I'm okay saying, is that true? Do we know why that's true? Do you know that to be true for sure?
Is there any alternative? Like that I'm okay with. And I love it when people do it with me because it forces me to check my own thinking, right?
And I just like a good, like a successful couple in a marriage or a relationship. where they don't fight to be right, they fight to get to resolution. When I debate, I don't debate to be right, I debate to advance the argument. So I'm perfectly happy to go, oh yes, what you said is brilliant, right, because we're moving the argument.
So I'm not contrarian, but I mean, I think anybody who has that sort of nonconformist, don't quite fit in, you know, gene. I think we all kind of feel the same way, which is we all desperately wish that we fit in and we all are very happy that we don't fit in. And it's you kind of live in paradox through your whole life.
You have the moments of extreme comfort and discomfort. You know, like I really want to fit in more, but I really like not fitting in. So it's, you know, like I said, there's no resolution. Just live in paradox.
I know there's a group of people who are listening going, yep. And there's a group of people who just don't understand. But those who know what I'm talking about know what I'm talking about.
You talked about the new world order 2.0. Cold War 2.0. When you're thinking futuristically about that, is there something that we should be hopeful about?
Or kind of what does your crystal ball say on all that? The answer is it depends. It can go in any direction depending on the choices we make.
I will say at a high level without like, otherwise we'll have to do a whole new video on Cold War 2.0. But at a high level, if you look globally, I lament the loss of idealism in the world. We've become very finite in our thinking and very tactical.
And there are many reasons for it. But if you look at sort of what Jack Welch and GE did to capitalism, you know, they broke it. The form of capitalism we have now is not Adam Smith capitalism that made America great and gave rise to so many remarkable things in the world and so many innovations in the world.
It's a twisted, deformed version of capitalism that prioritizes short-termism and wealth accumulation to the few at the expense of the many. And that's not what capitalism is about. And yet, because there's a generation that's grown up in that, they think that's what it is.
And that's why we see the rise of populism around the world. Even the rise of sort of authoritarians around the world because they're criticizing the system that has benefited the few at the expense of the many. Correct, it has. And so one could argue that that short-termist shareholder value, you know, put the quarter first, put myself first, you know, win the election at the expense, you know, it's about winning, not governing, like all of this mentality, all sort of became popular in business and in politics in sort of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. And it's now fully baked into our system.
And it's affected global politics as well. I don't care what your politics are, you know. John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan both talked about peace on earth. Literally, they talked about world peace in their inaugurations as a driving motivation for them. Talking about world peace now sounds corny, and our world leaders don't talk about world peace anymore.
Why not? You know, there were great leaders. Again, whether you agree with their politics or not, you know, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, Vox, Lech Havel, you know, Nelson Mandela. These were larger-than-life people.
that did exactly the thing that we've been talking about, which is they expressed their vision of a world that was different and better than the one we lived in now. You may disagree with how they got there. That's called politics. But nobody could disagree with what they imagined, which was world peace, which is not a world without conflict. It's a world that can resolve conflict peacefully.
And there's few, if any, leaders at a business level or a political level that talk in... lofty idealistic terms. Is there one? You tell me. Who's the Nelson Mandela of the day?
Exactly. Who's the leader of any country that seems to be inspiring the world? Yeah, there's your answer. What about in the private sector?
Private sector is a bit better, and there's a young generation of leaders coming up. You know, love him or hate him, Elon Musk definitely has a vision for humanity. You know, I think if you can look past some of the 3 a.m.
tweets and, you know... Some of the finite sort of silliness. There's something sort of very impressive about his vision.
And if he could stay away from the polarizing stuff, I think he'd have more of the world on his side like he used to, which I think he used to be one of those sort of inspiring personalities. But we talk about the loss of Steve Jobs. We talk about the loss of Jim Senegal at Costco.
You know, we sort of lament the loss of these leaders, Sam Walton, you know. It was a different time. And unfortunately, even in the entrepreneurial world, it's kind of funny because private sector, you really want to go down this rabbit hole?
But sort of like private companies used to be seen as like, oh, they're so lucky they're private. They don't have the stresses and strains of Wall Street and the analyst community. It's better to be private. But if you look at the VC community and the pressure they exert on private companies these days, and something like 80% of companies are VC-backed these days, something ridiculous, you know, They exert the same kind of pressure as the public markets and they want some sort of liquidity event of return on their investment in five to seven years.
And everybody loves their venture capitalist until you get five to seven years in. And all of a sudden, you're being forced to make decisions that are good for the short term and bad for the long term and sometimes get pushed out of your own company. And I think business is screwed up.
Business has become a short-term game. The average life of a company in the 50s and 60s was about 60 years. And the average life of a company now is 17. Is that good? Companies not built to last? Companies just lots of pigs with wearing a lot of lipstick?
At what cost? At what cost? Because there's a cost for everything in this world.
Ain't nothing for free. The relationships you have, the money you make, everything comes at a cost. The question is, was the cost worth it?
Was the cost worth it? And sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no. And I don't think we do a very good job of weighing the cost.
And I've talked to so many entrepreneurs. who sold their businesses to somebody they shouldn't have sold it to because they took the biggest offer, not the best offer, they can rationalize the heck out of it because they know. And that to me is sad. So I admire people like Carissa Bodner, the CEO and founder of Thrive Cosmetics. She has no desire for a liquidity event or to sell her company.
She wants to build a phenomenal company that does good in the world. I admire Ben Francis, the CEO and founder of Gymshark, who has no desire to simply chase money. and just go into markets just because. He operates with an extremely high level of ethics and morality, and he follows his vision, and he's patient, and he has no desire to sell it. These are the folks I admire.
Mark Zuckerberg's had one job in his life, and Steve Jobs had a couple jobs before Apple, but not many. He was 20-something years old when he founded Apple. Apple with Steve Wozniak and Mike Dell. They basically had one job in their lives because they were so passionate for the thing that they were doing.
Now, whether they were able to maintain that path or whether they went off the deep end and succumbed to the Wall Street pressures is a different conversation. But when you look at founders who start businesses with the goal of selling them, that start businesses with the goal of having a liquidity event, it might appeal to investors, but the rest of us should be very cautious. So in the opening of...
The Infinite Game, the book almost reads like it's what I would call the anti-competition book. As you know, that's my number one strength. Because there's even a quote in there when it says it's not all about winning. And there are some of us that might be inspired by the concept of winning. What are your thoughts on that?
So it depends on the game. The point I'm trying to make is there's more than one game. Finite games.
are games with fixed rules, known players, and an agreed upon objective. That we agree that when the game ends, whoever has more points is the winner. We all agree.
Nobody says, well, hold on, let's just play another three innings. I'm sure we can come back. No, that's not. It's the end of the ninth inning. Game is over.
We agree to that. We walk off the field. There's a fixed beginning, middle, and end.
That's important. And then there are games that don't fit those criteria, that have known and unknown players. that the players can play however they want and there's no end to the game. like business. Nobody wins business.
And every company can run however they want and new players can come and companies can go bankrupt. And when Circuit City went bankrupt, Best Buy didn't win anything, right? And you have to play with the mindset for the game you're in. And the point I attempted to make in that book is that we all seem to play with a finite mindset in every game, but you can only play with a finite mindset in a finite game and you can play with an infinite mindset in an infinite game. So I don't have a problem with the...
the instinct to win. But if you have the instinct to win in a game that has no finish line, bad things happen. You'll hurt trust, you'll hurt cooperation, you'll hurt innovation. That's just what happens.
So having a winning or a competitive spirit I don't have an issue with. It's also who are you competing against, right? Again, in business, multiple companies selling about the same product, about the same quality, about the same price, can all be wildly successful simultaneously. So what is winning?
based on what agreed upon objectives, defined by whom over what time frame. It's literally nonsense. It's literally made up. We're the winner.
We're the best. Based on what? Right?
I didn't agree to that. So to have that mindset is silly. And so the question is, with whom are you competing? And in an infinite game, you can absolutely be competitive. There's nothing wrong with it.
Compete against yourself. How do I be a better leader today than I was last year? How do I make my culture stronger? How do I build trust more effectively?
How do I communicate my ideas more comprehensively, more clearly? How do I resolve conflict more easily? How do I give feedback so it's heard? Work on those things.
How do I make my product better this year than it was last year? How do I make my website more efficient this year than it was last year? Do all those things.
But if you notice, you're competing against yourself. All the other players are simply worthy rivals whose strengths reveal to you your weaknesses and you can learn from them So just play play with the mindset that for the game you're in and if you want to compete compete against yourself But you also mentioned worthy rivals. That's a key aspect of the book. Can you talk more about that?
so worthy rivals are other players in the game who do one or many things better than you and Usually the mere utterance of their name makes you angry Or insecure because you deep-seated know that they're better than you And so usually we lash out and say that they suck at this, or really what you're saying is we need to do that. And so if you can get away from viewing the other players as competitors that need to be beaten, which we've already established is a fool's errand, but rather you can see them as worthy rivals whose strengths will reveal to you your weaknesses. And once you have those revealed, you can work on those and make them better. You become the stronger player and you wish them the best of luck.
Whether they succeed or fail is up to them. But damn it, you should stay in the game for as long as possible. Of your five strengths, which is the one that you use most to listen? That I use most to listen?
Well, I mean, I have to believe that it's the top strength, right? It's the ideation, I would guess. Because I don't, as you started this whole interview, you know, you started by... quoting that, you know, my acknowledgments, which is ideas evolve.
And so if that is true, then I'm not the only force on my ideas. You know, just like the Grand Canyon was formed by water and wind and time, like there are multiple forces at play. And so if I want my ideas to be good, then I have to be open that inspiration can come from anywhere. So I guess my desire to listen probably comes from the desire to find thinking that's better than mine.
You know, sometimes people use their strengths outside of work. Like they use their strengths with their friends. Which of your top five do you use with your friends?
I mean, whether they want it or not is a different question. You know, I always have opinions about better ways to do things. So your restorative is largely important. It comes up. You know, that's sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.
I don't know. I think, you know, I'm not sure I buy into the premise of the question, which is I don't think there's any difference to any of us between work and home. We make this artificial, you know, professional versus personal. You know, the difference between your work life, the work you and the personal you is the clothes you wear and the chair you sit at, you know. Your clients love you because it's you.
colleagues love you because it's you. Your friends love you because it's you. And so, you know, the responsibility is to be the best version of you, you know, slightly adapted for the The way you talk to your friends is obviously different the way you talk to your colleagues, but it's still you. It's a modulation.
It's not a switch. So I have to believe that all the things that make me effective professionally make me effective personally. When you think of your top five strengths, is there one of them that you feel like you draw on the most when you're inspiring people?
Well, don't they all work together? They can? I don't know how they wouldn't for me.
That's fair. So I think If I was future-oriented and I lacked communication, I'd probably just be frustrated and so would everybody else. I'd just be angry.
Well, you could technically have futuristic and not have communication in your top five. Yeah, but I'm saying for me, that would be frustrating for me because part of my process is communication. It's part of my thinking. Communicating is part of the thinking.
So I'd sort of be frustrated that I couldn't get my ideas out for myself, let alone for other people. I see. So... I guess you're asking me like, what's the most important part of my fingerprint?
I'm like, I don't know. It's my fingerprint. You're asking me to describe my personality and which element that makes me me is the most important. I guess at various points in time for various reasons, they all fluctuate and play their role.
But at the end of the day, what makes me me is all of those things. That's fair. I can't, I can't.
I love all my children equally. You know, there are, there are a lot of people right now, I think that are concerned that there has been a decline in purpose among the younger generation here in the United States. Do you think that that is happening?
There's a decline in purpose in every generation in the United States. Just as I said before, you know, we have leaders who don't inspire us with vision. They don't offer us purpose. So where are we supposed to get it? You know, I don't buy into the fact that everybody has to have a vision.
That's not fair. Not everybody's visionary. Your work reveals that. You know, there are some people who are predisposed to think in the future and have vision and some...
don't. And it's not fair to say that everybody should have all the strengths that you talk about. That's just not true. And so nobody, it's, I don't believe that we all have to have a vision, but we all do have to find the vision.
So I can find the vision of somebody else who inspires me and I make their vision my own, just like people did with Nelson Mandela or Vox Lacobal or Lee Iacocca or, you know, all of these folks, you know, people took their vision and said, I believe in that, you know, John F. Kennedy. You know? Yes! You know, Martin Luther King. That's the world I want to live in.
That vision becomes mine. So you have to find a vision. You don't have to come up with a vision.
But if nobody's giving us vision, then except for the, you know, minority of people who are considered visionary, the rest of us are left seeking. And I think what we have is a population right now that's in seeking mode, looking for meaning, looking for purpose. looking for grounding, looking for community.
And we find it in fits and starts that are temporary or politically oriented. But none of those things are sustainable, nor do they create unity. Vision, when it's communicated right, brings people together with different politics because we share the same ambition.
That's what the political parties are, by the way. the way, not to make this political, but the founding fathers said, all men are created equal and endowed with these unalienable rights. The debate is, how are we going to do that? That's the debate. Nobody disputes the vision.
That's fine. The question is, do we believe we should help more or should we sort of just reward the people who did? We debate how we do it. And that'll change.
It goes in and out of fashion, just like the parties go in and out of fashion, depending on politics, tastes, culture, technology of the day. But that's the debate. And I think our political leaders have forgotten to remind us what unifies us for finite personal gain. But that's a different conversation. You talked about the world, but the United States is in a tough spot.
What does your futuristic tell you about where things are going? I tend to skew optimists. I tend to believe that the world tends toward good. It's not a question whether the United States will exist or not. The question is in what form.
Will it be able to be an ideological exporter or not? In other words, will people want to follow our lead or not? You know, and for many years they did because we were inspiring and we told a good story. And, you know, I mean, just compare it to the United Kingdom, right?
Great Britain was a once inspiring empire that people followed and wanted to be like. I don't know. You know, it's still a great place to live. It's still a...
Cool place, but on the world stage, I don't hear anybody saying, be more like Great Britain, right? It was a once and great empire. And so, you know, I don't think America is going to cease to exist, but the question is in what form?
I think that's up for grabs. How does somebody build hope in a pessimistic world? Ah, very easy. Surround yourself with people who are hopeful. It's contagious.
You know, pessimism is contagious, but so is optimism. And the only way to beat pessimism is with optimism. If you find yourself surrounded by downers, hang around with some people who see the world as half full and watch what it does to you.
It's kind of amazing. Is that one of your strengths? What is it that makes you so optimistic kind of all the time? It's probably brain damage.
You know, my mom dropped me when I was a baby and then that's it. But I think I get that complaint even at work. Like why does Simon… maybe tone down the optimism a little bit. I just believe that even in darkness, there's light. You know, I believe in every tragedy, there's a lesson or there's a relationship.
You know, if you have somebody who dies in your family, you find yourself reconnecting with family who you never, you haven't seen in years or relationships that were broken become repaired. Like where people put their political differences aside because a hurricane just came through the neighborhood and we're going to help each other. Like I can't help but see, I view, I always view the world as balanced.
You know, nature abhors a vacuum. and it seeks equilibrium at all times. And I always seek to find balance. And so when something bad or dark happens, I always look, okay, what's the balance? But at the same time, when something good happens, I remain measured and say, okay, but what's the cost?
And so I think it's less obvious when it's an optimistic thing because everybody's so focused on the positive thing that I'm like, okay, this too shall pass. Just relax. Yes, we had a great year, but a lot of work to do.
Something good happened, great, wonderful, don't squander it. So people don't notice that I'm actually pretty measured after something really good that happens like I'm not the one like standing on the chair hooting and hollering. I'm sort of like alright let's move on. But at the same time when something bad happens it tends to stand out more just because I think in hard times or difficult times the person is the optimist.
But I'm always the same. I'm always the one seeking balance. So, I think that's all it is.
I always want to know what the opposite side that keeps this thing in check, because both are always present. And what makes you most inspired about the young generation today? I think that they are willing to challenge some of the existing notions of what business and capitalism should be. That they are attempting to throw out Jack Welch and say, that doesn't feel right.
They may not know the right answer, the right path, but something feels wrong. And, you know, conversations about triple bottom lines or there's more to running your business than just the money or, you know, maybe putting the livelihoods of human beings before a quarterly profit, you know, that maybe if the company's profitable, we shouldn't lay people off just because we missed an arbitrary projection. Maybe we shouldn't do that, you know, and I like that.
And there's some young leaders like Brian Chesky at Airbnb or the guys at Sweetgreen. I think they're attempting to find a way of how to do it differently, how to do it for the next generation. So I'm hopeful, but it has to be constructive.
I'm all in favor of saying the old way is broken, absolutely, but I want to hear the ideas, and I want people to experiment with the ideas, but I'm hopeful. I like that. The old generation, the boomers are clinging on to that old Jack Welch way.
Because it benefited them. And I think young people are saying, hmm, maybe not. Simon, thanks for sharing your strengths for today. I know you've inspired thousands around the world, but you've inspired a lot of us at Gallup too. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.