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

you are.

“I think that's a rare combination because usually people lean one way or the other, but you're”

really great at mixing both of them.

Thank you. And I wanted to ask you a question that I think has been an interesting conversation specifically in the last three to six months. What includes relationships, work, AI and leadership. Okay, there's been a lot of, in my opinion, distractions over the last few years of all

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

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

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

Right? We talk about algorithms every day. It's an over-nacular, but what is it? An algorithm is very simply a set of instructions, mathematical or computer code. It's a set of instructions that's all it is.

Right? The recipe is an algorithm. Two eggs, cup of milk, some flour, what you get is that. And so, you know, the algorithm, the set of instructions is, you know, Lewis went on Amazon and bought this, show him that.

Right? That's all it is. It's a list of instructions to solve a problem or to generate some sort of result. And so there's been artificial intelligence around us for a long time. And if you go back to the early days of, you know, ask G's, which was pre-google, right?

Didn't work very well. Right. And you have to write in full sentences. And so Google was invented to different algorithm that worked a different way that you could put in less information and you could get the thing that you're more likely to be looking

for. Right?

And the goal was always that you'd find what you're looking for in the first page, remember

back in the early days, you sometimes have to scroll if you think that. Right? In proving these list instructions and tell the computer what to do with a certain.

“I think the thing that's new is the generative AI, right?”

Where the machine can sort of, eh, it sounds like Star Trek, you know, it's like it speaks in normal language that you don't have to, you don't have to type in Google. You know, it's a Google's a language, you know, you type in the keywords you want. You don't have to speak in complete sentences. But now you talk to another human being and it tells you what you want.

But it's still based on existing information. The thing that scares me about AI is the thing that thinks scares everybody about generative AI and the speed at which this algorithm can work and the speed at which it can invent things. And is that something to be scared about or more side of the backing?

Both. The answer is both. And I think anybody who comes on one side or the other of the equation is missing the point. You know, there's a cost for everything.

And for all the benefits of anything in our lives, there's always a cost.

You want to make a lot of money. That's your drive. You know, you want to get rich and become a millionaire. Okay. There's a cost for the money you make.

You're going to sacrifice relationships. You're going to sacrifice sleep. You're going to sacrifice your health. Who knows what it is. Right?

But you're going to pay for that in some way shape performance and balanced equation. Right? So the more fantastic the benefits of any technology, the ballast equation has to be considered. So is it worth all the benefits if it's going to cost this much? Right?

And we're looking at climate change now and industrialization like all the benefits and industrialization. Was it worth the cost? I think some of us would have preferred to maybe scale back some of that and not deal with what we're dealing with now, right?

“So I think we have to do a cost analysis, which is I want this, but at what cost?”

Are we I want this, but at the cost of undermining a democracy? Oh, that seems like a steep cost for something to write a book for me, you know? Right. Like I'm not sure. And at least as it exists now, it's useless for original thoughts.

So people ask me all the time of you scared of it, but I'm absolutely not scared of it at all. Because if you ask AI to write a book in the style of Simon Sinek, you know, on any subject, it can only draw from what I've already written, but it can't give them a new thought.

It will do some things that I think are really interesting. It'll change the balance of jobs. So for example, if you work in public relations or if you're, you know, even a scriptwriter, whatever it is, you know, there is fear of AI, of course.

“Again, kind of general, it can't do new ideas, but a lot of ideas are not new, you know?”

The like an artist, but like take, let's take a PR company, for example, right?

Take a lot of time to write that first draft, right?

And you need a good writer to write a first draft. What will happen with AI is AI can write the first draft in instantaneously. So like in my world, in writing, you know this from running a book, the writers, the hero, the editors, like the hired help. Right? That'll switch, which, if not for new ideas, but for ideas that don't require

novelty, right, a press release that, you know? Has four bullet points, as we're talking about the benefits, right? The editors will become the heroes, because the AI can write first and interesting. So I think that balance will change. But to go back to your original question, you know, to go back to your original question,

one of the conversations that's not happening about any of this. We're not talking at all about social ripples.

And they're always social ripples, right?

And there's a blindness.

“People are blind when it comes to how we talk about new things, right?”

And when I talk about social ripples, what I mean is fear, right? Fear is an emotion. It is sometimes irrational, not always. Sometimes irrational, and it can produce behaviors that can be antisocial. If you're afraid enough, you can hurt someone, right?

You can hurt them with your words, you can hurt them with your actions, based on fear, right? We've all said things in relationships out of fear, right? So let's take an analogy. A bunch of due gooders come into a town in Ohio,

cold town, and say, we're getting rid of this callmine at the bad for the environment. We're going to replace with solar and wind, and it's the right thing to do.

And they're always surprised when the town of coal miners is angrily against it, right?

Now the reality is they're not anti-wins nor the anti-sult. All I know is I'm a coal miner. My father was a coal miner. My father's father was a coal miner. All I know is how to do coal mining.

And all I know is this mine down the street produces income for me to take care of my family. And you're coming in here and say, we're going to take your income away. When I get in with a coal, taking rid of your livelihood, and you have no discernible skill set, what you get is fear. And when somebody doesn't feel seen or heard, and they feel afraid that you're coming into

“take something away from them, they're going to put up a wall and say, you cannot do that, right?”

That's the same thing going on here, which is all the discussions, all the job that's going to take away. All the things that's going to destroy, right? And so what it's producing is fear. And when you have fear, you have emotional reactions that have nothing to do with computers, and nothing to do with algorithms, nothing to do with generative AI.

What it has to do with at the minimum is how we vote. But worse, it can get people so afraid that they start lashing out in anti-social ways. Sometimes it's individuals and sometimes it's as a group, right? And we are not talking about the social ripples. We're also living in a world where the haves and the havin' knots, the richest people,

and the upfront line worker, the disparity, is so great, right? The average, so if you go back, I think 50 years or so, 40 years or so, on average a CEO made about 35 times what the lowest paid worker. And now you're talking 400, 500, 600, 700 times, 800 times, the lowest paid workers, right? The disparities are great.

1% of the population owns 80% of the stock, you know? I mean, it's just, it's so great. And when you have huge gaps between the wealthy, and those who work to make the wealthy wealthy, that is a recipe for rebellion. So we already are living in a tender box right now, where this is normal, right? And we've seen the rise of this populist message, I don't care, we're a public and a Democrat,

we heard it from Trump, we heard it from Bernie Sanders, right? They're pointing out the disparity, and the liberals loved Bernie, and the conservatives loved Trump, right? Because they're saying, look what's happening, unfortunately, in both cases, a leveraging fear for a vote. But we're not talking about the fear that the discussion of AI is producing

We're not talking about that. What are the fear of conversations that you're hearing from people?

And what are the emotions that are coming out of it at the early stages? And where do you think that's good ahead over the next few years? Nobody's listening. Again, it goes back to that combiner example, right? Well intention people can come in and say, this is something that's important for the environment, but we understand this is highly disruptive to your life. We're not going to take anything away, but I want to hear how you feel. They're not asking those questions,

they're not trying to understand the fear, they're not making people feel seen or heard or understood. They're just coming in, you know, they're barreling in. By the way, this is both sides of the political aisle, both sides of the political aisle are barreling in with their their their desires without listening to the people who it's going to affect, right? And then there's surprise that people are angry and put up a roadblock. And so to answer your question, it's not happening.

Those conversations aren't happening. There is a total lack of listening in our nation. There's a total lack of empathy in our nation. You know, we're not living in a world of you're right, no, I'm right in your role, rather than, then we have a problem and we should be you and me against the problem rather than me against you, which is like a healthy conscious intimate relationship, but they teach you a therapy, correct, and you'll find a lot of overlaps and the stuff that

“we're going to talk about if you want to talk about this population. Yes, and in intimate relationships,”

it's interesting that it's human beings talking to human beings. Do you think that we will ever, as a nation, at least in this country, be able to say, hey, how do we come together and focus on the problem, not you're right, and you're wrong? Or do you think it's politics creates so much of a division that people will just there'll be too much fear for people to actually listen and to both sides. And now you didn't talk about politics, but just about, hey, I or relationships

are business or wealth or whatever my be. Do you think we'll ever be able to do that? You know, when people come together and put all their political differences assigned, war, correct. That's kind of scary though. When when we are challenged by an external existential threat, man, we come together, right? We sort of happen after September 11th. We saw that, you know, Osama bin Laden believed that by flying planes into the World Trade

“Center in the Pentagon, that it would fracture America. It did the absolute ups and all, right?”

Because there's one thing greater than my fear of view is the fear of that. And we saw it during

the first rendition of the Cold War. The fear of the Soviet Union, the nuclear war, the Soviet Union.

Even though there was politics and there was territoriality and the armed forces and all of the nonsense that still exists today, at the end of the day, we could all agree on one thing, that's worse. So I can put, we can put at different societies, that's worse. And so the mistake that America made when the Berlin Wall came down, like Soviet Union collapsed, as we falsely believed that we had won the war. And there's no such thing as winning global

politics. It's like the Roman Empire doesn't exist, but the physical land still exists, and the people who were Romans are now Italian, it's like nobody, in a way, they just changed forms. It's like a lot of conservation of matter, a lot of conservation of energy, and there's a lot of conservation of people. People don't disappear, because the empire is a political construction. And so we didn't win anything. The Soviet Union collapsed, but the people are still there,

and the culture is still there, and the land is still there, and America acted like victors.

And what always happens in an internet game, what always happens in a game that has no end,

is new players will emerge. Just like when one company goes bankrupt, it doesn't mean the game of business is over, means new companies will fill the space. Well, new nations fill the space. And so the threats that challenged America showed up in the form of North Korean, the form of

“global terrorism, you know, Al-Qaeda and ISIS and all other spin-offs. And I think that global”

competition is actually a very good thing. It's scary. It creates tension. But the irony is, as we as capitalists, because America believes in capitalism and democracy, we as capitalists believe that competition is ultimately good for the consumer, and we have laws against monopolies. Well, America for 30 years was acting like a monopoly, like the cable company. Everybody hated you. You had no choice. All right. You know, and you can impose you will in the consumer,

willy-nilly, in which America imposed its will on the world, willy-nilly, with no reaction. And so I actually think the rise of a balance of power, a competition is probably the best thing

but it does have to be somebody who offers a legitimate challenge to the power structure.

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

You know, we're, we're in my op-it-bunch. You know, human beings are very dopamine driven, you know, find the food, look for shelter, you know, um, then do it again.

And long-term planning is not really our strength as a species, because long-term planning exists in

our imaginations. I better save money for the day that I retire 60 years from now. You know, it's just like, well, or I could just bite now because it feels better, right? We're just, we're bad at it. We're bad as governments at it. We're bad as individuals at it. We're just bad at it. We're not engineered for it. And so I think I think that's a part of it. And what near-death experiences do or competitive threats do is their tangible reminders of what

couldn't be. Because again, we're tangibly driven animals, right? We love tangibility metrics.

“Things we can see, you know, you hear a bump in the net, you have to go look for it, you know?”

And so, uh, it makes it real. Um, so even the global threats have existed since the fall of the Soviet Union, now that you can see what, you know, now you can give it a name and a flag, you know, in a language. It becomes a real thing. And I think the same goes for, um, new-to-the experiences. It's like my mortality, which was something that I didn't think about, is now real, which is why I ask, ask old people for advice. They give the best advice because they don't give what you think about them.

Because they're close because they've accepted their own mortality. The end is near. The end is near. And so I'm not doing anything to please you anymore. Yeah, I'm trying to press you, you know, talk to a 20-year-old and talk to a 70-year-old and see what kind of advice you get. And it's not just experience and wisdom, of course, that factors in as well. You know, one is much more concerned about what you think about them, the other one really does care.

“So I think that's what these shocks do. And I think one of the things that”

storytelling does, one of the things that you do and I do and others do, is by telling the stories of other people's near-death experiences or other people's losses, hopefully hopefully inspires people to take on themselves without having to go through the challenge themselves. That's the idea. But, you know, I remember after September and I met, I was in New York, on September 11th, and lived through it. You were there.

Yeah, I watched the buildings fall really. Yeah, yeah. Where were parts? I was downtown. I was in Soho. Really? So I just about, I was actually did the calculations I figured out. I was exactly one mile. You could see the buildings. And from my office, yeah, I was walking, I took the subway and the subway stopped at 14th Street and I still had to get the Soho. So I walked down 7th Avenue, which the end of 7th Avenue

was the World Trade Center. Wow. And so I was walking down, watching them burning and

“holy, and then got to work. And the view from my office was the World Trade Center. Now why?”

And yeah, I remember, I remember the very strange, yeah, that's in Boston, my brain. I'm not going to fact forget that image of it. Well, what was that? I mean, this is a little sidetrack. But what was that? That day like, you know, watching an at your office, what was the scene like where people paying a tent was ever all eyes on the floor? Of course, of course. Of course. Wow. Um, we were, you know, at this point, we, when I woke up in the morning,

because the first plane hit shortly after 8 a.m. and I didn't lift the house yet.

Had you already heard about it? Well, it was on the news. A friend of mine just turned on the news. So I turned on the news. And there was a hole in the World Trade Center. And it was burning. But the scale of those buildings is so huge that we couldn't tell that it was an airliner. We thought it was a session. So you saw a hole in the building. But there was just so big. You literally just thought it was in, and it was a beautiful day. So it's not like there was a storm.

There's a hard fact that. So we just thought it was an idiot in the session. And I went to work.

did you see what happened? And by the time I got off the subway and 14th street, because, you know,

“media disappears under the ground. Now there were people sitting on the sides of the street,”

listening to radios and their cars. And at this point now, we started to realize this was terrorism. So we started to recognize what it was pretty quickly. But we didn't know what the implications were. And we also didn't expect the buildings to fall down. You know, it was a weird flaw on how the buildings were made. That made them, because you know, most buildings had internal load-bearing structures. And what made the world trade center unique was all the load-bearing

structures are on the outside. And so the floor is basically floated in the middle. Wow. So

except for the excavators, except for the elevators, the where you could stand on one side of the world train center inside and look clear over to the side of the building. You know, it was an amazing bill out. And so they collapsed on top of each other when it came down, which nobody knew what happened. And so, um, I was in constant contact with my sister who worked also in so-who across town, mile. And we were talking constantly and after the second building fell,

I called her up and said, "I'm coming to get you. We're going to go home." We lived up town. And so I walked across town together and we were part of the mass exit as walking four miles of town, and, um, of all the thousands of images that were captured that day, one image I,

and I went through all the books and everything, you know, one image that was really never captured

was this, it was very quiet. We were all walking into one direct instrument and thousands of people, no cars on the road, walking north. No one in the subway, everyone's just saying, "Everybody's above ground and all going is very quiet." And speckled in between all of this exodus, where people covered head to toe, in sweat, plow. But other than that, everything was normal. They were holding their briefcase and their newspaper, and it was just covered in debris. They were covered. I mean,

we saw the pictures of people covered, but they were just speckled. And my sister, she had two colleagues,

“which we dropped them off on the way. And I remember, there was all four of us, and we were coming”

apart, Avenue, there's a guy sitting on a stoop, frantically calling somebody, I guess, to tell them that he was alive, frantically calling. And we walked up to him, and we said, "Give us the number." No words were spoken. We just, well, I remember it. We just walked up and said, "Give us the number will help call." And he held up his address book. He just pointed. He didn't have words. We all typed in the number into our phones. We're hitting, you know, send, send, send, send, send,

every single one of us is trying to call. We're getting busy signals. My sister's phone got through. She hands him the phone. He takes it. He says, "I'm okay. I'm okay." And it gives the phone back, and walks away. We're all crying, obviously. We dropped up two more sister's friends, her colleagues, and it was just my sister and me walking up the rest of the way. And we got to

“Grand Central Station, which blocks Park Avenue. So you have to go around it. And as we got there,”

somebody started screaming, "Run, run, run, run, and we saw the cops." Because they were fighter jets flying over. So you heard planes, but you didn't know what they were. So you heard planes flying over. And we looked down the street and the cops were going like this. And everybody started running and like dropping things and shoes falling off. They thought another plane had hit we didn't know what it was. So I grabbed my sister, and I'm thinking to myself, okay, there's

going to be a blast. It's going to come down like this. And I pulled her off the street and like put her hands up against the building. And I look up and it's a huge glass. It's a shop window. And I like this is not going to be good. So I grabbed her and we just started running and then eventually just sort of petered out. It was a bomb scare it turned out later. And then we made our way to the rest of it. We made our way back up town and didn't lean for two weeks. We just

had like everybody just started watching television and says on stop. Yeah. Holy cow. Did you guys, did you go back to work? Or did you ever say like work was done for weeks? Work was done for weeks. And when it opened up, like nobody really went there go. And my office was in part of the town that part of the New York that was shut down. Like you couldn't get there. They couldn't get there. Holy cow. They wouldn't let you down. How did that moment of being there,

ground zero really shaped you emotionally after that after experiencing it in person? I was a freshman in college when I saw it on TV and it was like it was a big deal and Minnesota when I was in college there was like the whole city came together. It was the whole thing. But you were there.

How did that shaped you? My story is one of literally, you know, a couple million. I mean there's

deeply touching and deeply personal for all of us. I mean, you said it. I mean, it reminds

“you of humanity and it reminds you, you know. And I remember that was September 11th was very”

important to me in my career because I worked in advertising. And I struggled to go back to that stupid job and that's stupid industry. Really? Yeah. I really once I did go back to work, I'm like doing it with my life. Like it's like you in a lot of people signed up for the military because they're like, I got to do something with my life. And I think a lot of people that the realization that the life that I live is stupid and I want to do something that matters. And that's when I

started thinking this, this is the stupidest industry in the world. Like I come to work to help people so they don't need like what they're doing with my life. And my entrepreneurial venture started

pretty shortly after that. So I could do things this way. Interesting. And do things with purpose and

started talking about things in a very different way. So yeah, it was pretty formative. I mean, it took, unfortunately, a big breakdown to happen. For you to start seeing, maybe you'd already noticed it, but that was the really the eye opening. Like, okay, I've got to make a change.

“We go back to your original question, you know, which is why does it require these things? I think”

I think that's not interesting to me. I mean, I think that's sort of like, I get it. Oh, I think what isn't just to me, you know, is why does it go bad? Right? Like what I mean, when you have that light changing experience, and then you, you don't make a change. You do, no, no, you do make a change, but then it runs out. So I saw this happen after

after September 11th, in New York. For quite a quite a long time, I would say months,

New York was Utopia. There was no crime. And then everyone came together. Everyone came together. There was literally no crime. Ever a lovely job there. There's strangers. What do you need? I'm here for nothing. And like the total number of racially motivated crimes in New York after September 11th was zero. So in New York, they took their anger out on, you know, an Arab population, for example, just didn't, didn't help. And I remember thinking to myself, this is going to go away.

Like, we're going to forget, and we're just going to go back to being New York again. Wow. Wow. Sure enough. And enough time we got distracted by the short term. So this COVID was in a different, in the middle of COVID, we're all thinking, oh my God, you know, I have to re-valuate my life, my work life balance. You know, I don't want to work like a crazy person. Like, I used to do more productivity is not going to be my primary metric

of whether I'm having a good day or not. And that went away. You know, we're all working like idiots again. And like productivity is like people look down on you now if you're not being productive day. Like, we forget. And again, this is the biology of the dopamine driven animal that is more driven by the short term and the visual. That to me, upsets me more. It's not that it, it's not that you need some sort of shock to convert,

but that the conversion doesn't last. Right. And so, you know, you were sort of you were joking about my orange watch. And, you know, I use symbols to remind me. And so I'm surrounded on like an orange belt. And like, you know, I keep things around me to remind me that these things matter and I tell the stories. And I tell the story of going to Afghanistan with the Air Force. I tell the story of, you know, like, it's a center element that it's not.

It's in part to remind others, but it's also in part to remind me. Yeah. You know, my sister suffered a horrible tragedy many years ago where she lost her fiance. He was killed right in front of her two weeks, performed a wedding. Oh, my goodness. And during COVID, she came to me

“and said, I think I want to talk about my experience on the podcast because a lot of people are”

losing loved ones and perhaps my experience can help them. And, you know, again, it's in part for others, but reliving that horrible date with her is a reminder to us as well. That our relationship matters and our friends matter and our lives matter and long-term matters. And, you know, and productivity is not the primary metric of fungun day. And the ability to, I think, you know, it talked about the 20-year-old versus the 70-year-old. You know, it's the ability to shut out the noise, the peer pressure.

That judges you based on how much of you accomplished, how much money you've made, how many promotions have you had, what's your salary? You know, like, we're judging our self-worth, based on what other people pay us and sure everybody wants to make more money. I got it, you know? What should we judge our self-worth all? The life that we live. I think we should judge our self-worth on the value we have in the lives of others. To other people think of you as a good friend,

a good colleague, a good teammate. You know, I think that I'd rather be, I'd rather judge myself

on that. And again, we're dopamine, tangible, driven animals, but easier to judge myself based on number in a bank account because I can see it and I can count it. And if there's a lot in there, there must be valuable, that there's little in there that must be unvalidible, which is nonsense, because I can tell you I know a lot of rich people who have no value in the world, and rich people aren't necessarily the hardest working. I know a lot of very rich people who are lazy,

and I don't criticize them for that. Just don't think that because someone's rich, they're incredibly hardworking. And please stop calling the homeless lazy. You go be homeless for a day,

“see how lazy you have to be in order to survive with no money, no resources. Good luck. It just,”

the laziness isn't, that's not it. Like, you actually have to work hard at surviving when you have nothing. And I think we have all of these metrics screwed up in the role based on what I can count and when I can see rather than the value I have in the lives of owners. And by the way, you don't even get to judge that, because the only way you know your value and the lives of others is of others say, you may value in their lives. Right. So that's a great thing.

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

breakthrough, my loss and the person she is. What was that, what was the lesson that you learned

and you not going through yourself, but witnessing someone that you loved go through a loss like that, what was the lesson for you? You know, I'm, there's a civil, where I talk about balance all the time. There's a civil lining in every cloud. There's a cost for everything we gain in life, but at the same time, there's goodness that comes out of every loss. My sister and I were already pretty close. I mean, it made us even closer.

My family and I were, my family and us were also already pretty close. We got even closer. I think tragedy brings family together in a way that nothing else can.

Perspective. This, you know, that the stupid stuff that we got stressed about just isn't that important.

You know, there's something called Post-traumatic growth. We love talking about Post-traumatic stress, but there's also Post-traumatic growth. There's a lot of growth that comes out of loss and tragedy as well. I think, yeah, I think these things, I mean, you said it right at the top, right? It's the fragility of, of, why do we need these reminders? So I think that was a big one. Yeah. And, you know, my sister's happily married, she's got two kids, you know, built a new life.

And that's super inspiring. That's right. That, you know, people go through breakups or divorces,

“and they think that's it. Their life is over. They'll never find love again. I'm like, "Well,”

here to tell you." She created it. Yeah. You can find love again. You know? And she has a picture of her fiance that she lost in her office on her desk. And it's, like, I see it there. And it's nice reminder for all of us, you know? His loss is a nice reminder to all of us that live, live life. Love, life. Um, easier said than done. I mean, you know, even I write books about this stuff and it's hard. It is hard work. And I get a kick out of that, by the way. You know, it's very easy to

be a cat. Cats don't think about being cats. They're just cats, right? But you have to mean, you have to actually work really hard to be a human being. Oh, like being a good human being actually a part of so much work. Yes. You know? And there's, there's, that's funny to me. You know, like, to be the best version of human being is actually very difficult in cars studying and

“accurate. It does. This comfort and all those things that, you know, I think this young generation”

is tries to avoid. Yeah. Not the work part that discomfort part. Yeah. You mentioned about, you know, we shouldn't be, I can remember exactly said, but we shouldn't be focusing on art, a good day being on how productive we are. Yeah. We should have a different metric out of what a good day is. How do we measure what a good day is then if it's not a productive day? So this is the problem with things that are hard to measure. Does mean they don't exist. It just

means they're hard to measure. You know, you're in love with your girlfriend. You know, show me the metric. Show me the number that proves to me, you know, that that she is the love of your life. Well, you can't. You can show me a bunch of behaviors and I can ask her if she feels secure.

you provide her. But I got no number. Um, so just because you can't measure something or just

something difficult to measure doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Right. So that's that's an important lesson. I learned that in my career too. So I had this meeting at the Pentagon. I said sitting in the FOIA waiting for the general to come and bring when it was ready to see me. And we've all had this experience where you're waiting in a FOIA, waiting in a waiting area and somebody will come and get you and they take you to the conference room with the office. And because

being quiet is uncomfortable, we fill the dead air. How's your day? Exactly. What's going on? Exactly. Exactly. How was your flight? So hot out here. So hot out. Exactly. Exactly. It's hallway talk. It's all it is designed to to fill dead air. That's it. And the minute you walk in

“the office, it just stops. Nobody actually cared. Right. Well, that's what happened to me. The general”

came to get me. We start walking to his office and the hallway talk begins. And he says, you know Simon, I had everybody on my office read your book. And I said, my publisher thanks you. And he said, uh, tell him not to bother. I had them read my copy. Total book sales. One more. Total impact. Cute. Um, compared to I go to an event. And they give away 500 free copies of the book. Total book sales 500. But they use them as door stops and

coasters to help him pack zero. Maybe three or four people read it. Right. Yeah. So it was that experience that I realized that I can't measure. Impact simply based on book sales or dollars or income, or anything like that. Now, over the long term, I think you can, you know, the book is sustainable. But in the short term, it's really a useless metric. So I had to get comfortable with the fact that I was doing things that I couldn't measure the impact, but I knew had an impact.

“And you've heard me talk about these things before. You know, I talk about exercise,”

where you go to the gym and you come home and you don't see anything. And you go to the gym the next day and you come home and you don't see anything. And so you're like, it's not working. And you're in pain. Right. Yeah. And you want to eat a cheeseburger. Right. Pizza at ice grid. Yeah. And you keep doing it. And you still don't really see anything until you maybe look down and read a scale or and sometimes that's weight isn't even the thing. You're replacing

fat with muscle. You're weight might go up. Right. Until people start saying to you, you look

really good. Like, yeah. But you never saw it happen. Like, you never see yourself get older until

you look at a picture of you when you were younger. Right. And and so you believe we, you know, we know from the science and we know from experience that if I exercise, it's a process. And it's good for me, even though I can't measure it in the short term. And if I eat well and I keep doing that, I know it'll keep me healthy for the long term of eat more leafy greens and less sugar. I know I just have to stick to this process that at 100% 100% of the time it works. How long does it take

to get into shape you start exercising? Nobody knows. Right. Neither does any doctor. Sometimes a little less time for some people and sometimes a little more time for others. Like, we don't know. We just know 100% that it works. And so I had to get used to the idea professionally that I'm going to do things that I know work. But I won't be able to measure them. And I just have to be okay with the fact that it works. Like exercise, like eating right. And so that's where, you know,

learning an intimate mindset and letting go of annual goals. So people's like, you know, what's your annual goal? I don't have any because I can't predict what I'm going to achieve based on arbitrary timelines. So I have guidelines. You know, like, I run a marathon. I like to know the speed I'm going at. Like, I do look at numbers. They matter to me. They help me measure speed and distance. But I don't get happy or sad if I hit or miss a number. What do you think

so many people get sad or happy based on if they make they hit their goals? And sometimes because your goals and you're still not happy. Because we're dopamine to an short term, visual, Anna. So I mean, it's going to go in a circle. Right. And because we can create, if you create a goal and you hit it, you get a shot of dopamine. That is what happened. Right. Any kind of beginning middle and end. If you reach the end, you'll get the dopamine,

like, fine food. Found it. Oh, feels good. I lost my keys. Found them. Oh, I got to feel so good.

Right. Um, this is why we often confuse on a first date. We do this like falling in love on the first,

you know, in the first date. Not really true. That's not oxytocin and serotonin. That's actually dopamine. Because you, you think you found the thing you're looking for. So you have a list of things in your head and that you want in your relationship. This person seems to have a bunch of them. And you have, you know, new relationship energy. All you see is the stuff that you want bets on your

“perfect stuff and you're literally like, I think this is the foundation. Yeah. I think,”

I think they're the one. I'm like, congratulations. You are getting your flooding with dopamine on date one or date two and you are not in love. We've all made them a stake. You're not in love.

that was I think. Right. And they've said that about me. We kind of help ourselves. And I think that

if you recognize these things. And let's go right back to the question where you started, which is you talked about the condition of the human relationship. Right. And I think when the human relationship declines, we're in our feelings, a love and friendship and closeness and deep meaning for relationships to decline, we become more obsessed with the external validations, the clicks, the likes, the followers. To the point where it's little become a career, I'm an influencer,

which means I have more clicks than you, more likes than you, more followers than you. And that makes me an alpha and our society. I went to an event recently and there was this pretty girl who was, I was sitting my seat at this event and she was posing for pictures of her friend took pictures of her. And somebody leaves over to me she goes, she's a very famous influencer.

“And I said, you mean she's a freelance employee of an algorithm. Because that's what an influencer is.”

They're freelance employees for algorithms. They might make a lot of money. A lot of some freelancers make a lot of money. And they work for the algorithm. The algorithm is their boss. They have to feed the algorithm. They have to feed the algorithm. If the algorithm changes,

they can destroy their own income. And you never get to rest. You never get to rest because the

algorithm doesn't rest. You don't get to rest. And it could influence their self worth. So the smart influencers, if they're making coin, right, bank that coin, invest that coin. Because you are going to burn out or the algorithm will chain or somebody else will do it better than you. More likely you're going to burn out. Just nobody can maintain that pace of recording your life every moment, you know, for content content content because the algorithm never rest. Think of it like CNN.

It's a 24 and 24 hour new cycle for your life. Crazy. Right. And we saw what happened to the quality of news when we went to a 24 new cycle. 24 hours new cycle. Right. And I think it's not the

“quality of life when you go to a 24 hour content production schedule. Your vacations. You have to”

bring your camera with you. You're always on your relationships. You're bringing your camera with you.

You're going to burn out. Um, and if you've been saving your money and investing your money, you'll be just fine. But if you're spending that money, it's not going to be good. How does someone manage their own life's motivation? While making sure they're being somewhat productive to have a career that pays them an income and can cultivate growth within a career or their own business while also creating the metric of a good day. How can we balance those three of staying

motivated, not being lazy? Having a balanced, healthy, beautiful day while also being productive. What's wrong with being lazy? Nothing. What does lazy mean? What does it mean to be lazy? I think, well, my, I think my definition of I'm being thinking about right now is more of like not caring about anything. It would be my definition of lazy. Not caring. Okay. That's, but I may be now. I think, but I think it's clear that we use that. Yes, because lazy to some

people might be sitting on a couch watching TV all day. All right. Now, if I've been working with crazy person, that's for last month's house. That sounds, that sounds good to me. Or maybe I'm watching documentaries and I'm generating ideas. Right. Yeah. That's not lazy to me. To somebody, you know, that I haven't produced something at the end of the day. That's tangible. Because this thing, things being produced all the time here, right? Ideas.

Then, so let's be clear that what we mean by, it's not lazy, but what we mean by is, how do you, how do you live a life where you care, like you don't care? So, I think, I think older generations, and I count myself amongst them. Our generation is pretty judgey because we believe you go to work you get the promotion, you move you move you at the ladder, and we kind of understand people who don't have ambition. Right. What do you mean, you, what do you mean, you're not interested in, like,

moving up the ladder and getting more responsibility in one day, achieving a leader for either way?

“I feel entitled to just be a leader at 24. Right. You have to work. Right. Like, we're, but we're”

pretty judgey, right? And I think we have to recognize that raw ambition is fine for some. And some people want to just come to work, get a paycheck, and have that paycheck pay for their lifestyle. And they're not interested in moving up the ladder. They're interested in fair compensation. They, it's not that they don't care. They do care. They still do good work. They're just not

just because they don't have any aspirations to move up through the ladder. But they can't

get all, if they haven't been giving, like, massive raises when they're just, you know, like, managing. And I know a lot of people who are very happy, they make a decent living. They spend their money, and they go on vacations, and they save enough, and it's all balanced. And it's, I think they live fantastic lives. They care. Yeah. They care about the work, and they care about the quality of their work. They care about their lives and the quality of their

lives. And they, and they, and they want the two to coexist. Right? But remember, we said cost.

“There's a cost for everything. So if you want to be highly, highly ambitious and make all that money”

and get all that charm, that comes out of cost to your personal life. If all you want is going vacations, well, that came as a cost sometimes to your income or your professional stability. Right? So the goal is to find the balance that you're comfortable with. You know, some may tell the little more towards ambition, and some may tell the little more towards lifestyle. And it's not for us to judge, it's for us to understand. Now, if I can understand that's how somebody on my team

wants to live a life, then I'm okay with that. And as long as they do good work, and they care, I think that's a very good, important business. They care. I'm not going to overload them with stuff that they can prove to me that they can do it, but I want them to do good work within, within those boundaries. Yes. And I'm cool with it. But and we talk about, like, I think this whole idea of setting boundaries, you know, it gets a little bit misunderstood. Ah, right? Like everybody

thinks it to set boundaries, which means keep people away. I refuse to do that. That's beyond my boundary. I'm not doing that. No, no, that's not what boundaries mean. What boundaries means are, let me tell you what I imagine and what my limitations are. We have boundaries and relationships, right? You sit down with your partner. You co-create the relationship that you want to have. And if you're a good relationship, you discuss what the boundaries are that you both agree

to obey. And it's not for us to judge the boundaries of other relationships based on the boundaries of our relationships and vice versa, right? We create the boundaries that make us comfortable and we agree to stay within those boundaries. We can do whatever we want to side those boundaries, but we cannot step outside those boundaries. Whatever relationship style you want to have,

“you gotta have boundaries. And that is a discussion. And I think that is the right thing to do”

in a professional circumstance as well. It was always assumed that there's only one kind of boundary,

which is the one I have. Right, right, right, right. And if you go to work to a ton of clock and I can work in Saturday, you do it. Make it happen. But that's not the reality of a young generation anymore, but we're not having the discussion. What we've confused is boundaries as a conversation versus boundaries as a unilateral wall. This is, I'm not doing that and you kind of ask me to do that. Right. It should be a conversation, which is somebody says, look,

I'm not interested in moving up the ranks. I want to be treated fairly. I want to be paid fairly. I'm going to do good work, but I don't want to work late at night. I don't want to work on weekends because I want to live lifestyle. And I'll say, okay, like an only relationship, let's have an negotiation, right, which is I'm cool with that every now and then every now and then when there's a lot of stress and things have gone haywire or we have a huge deadline, I may need you to

stay late a couple nights or the occasional Saturday, but I'll give you Monday off. I'll make it up to you. I'm not going to take away from you without giving you back and I won't do it a lot. I won't

“abuse it, but every now and then are you okay with that boundary? The flexible boundary here, right?”

So I hear what the boundaries are you want. You understand the things that I need and we come to an agreement and say, yes, those are the boundaries. We're both, we're all cool with that. We're at alignment in alignment and that becomes more productive, but that's not what's happening. Usually the discussion of boundaries is me telling you as opposed to, and by the way, try that in your relationship. Not going to go well. Me telling you what my boundaries are in my

relationship as opposed to a discussion where I can understand where the boundaries are coming from and maybe your past experiences or maybe you've had bosses that took advantage of you or maybe you were underpaid and somebody abused the fact that you were, you know, salary, or whatever it is. It's just a conversation because we don't know what somebody's previous experiences that makes them create the boundary that they have now, and they're usually based on some sort of

preventing something from happening again. That already happened in the past here. It happened to me.

I'm never letting that happen to me again. Basically, my boundary, yeah, yeah. Like everything,

this is going to be a circular conversation for us. It's human beings interact with human beings. Yeah. And we have to do this together. The relationship is ours. My girlfriend and I joke

of her, what I expected of a girlfriend. Which was, I mean, we all have our own, yeah, you're on definition of it. We all have our own blueprints of what we want. Right. And she wanted me to fit the blueprint of what her definition of her definition of her definition of what a boyfriend should be and what the truth. And what what my definition of a relationship should look like. And we were both failing miserably to live up to each other's blueprint. Really. Of course. Where are you

failing after it was discussed? Here's what it is. There's no discussion. Everybody shows up with a

blueprint on their head and you don't even have to fit it or you don't. Right. Okay. So that's where the conflict started. Of course. And then you they're constantly letting you down or you're picking fights or whatever it is, it didn't go very well. And until we sat down to be like, this is not working.

“And so we agreed that I have to throw my blueprint and you have to throw your blueprint. We like each”

other a lot. So we know that. There's a good basis. We respect each other, we care about each other, we have the same values. Why don't we agree to write a new blueprint together? And co-creation became our mantra. That's beautiful. Right. That the relationship will not be mine and it'll not be yours. It'll be ours. And I can no longer make a unilateral decision about what I want in this relationship. Because the relationship doesn't belong to me. It belongs to us. We have joint custody of this

relationship. Really interesting. Right. And by the way, you can make unilateral decisions about what happens to the relationship. Because it doesn't belong to you. I got 50% of this. Right. Right. And the result has been amazing. And it requires lots, lots, lots, lots of communication. And boundary setting and discussions. And I think professional relationships should be the same. Which is, I have a blueprint in my head of what an employee should do. An employee is a blueprint in their head

of what a company or a boss should do. Uh-huh. And the problem is is hopefully that goes well.

Sometimes it goes well. And sometimes it completely falls apart. Versus saying, I got this job. You got this, you know, you got this, you're my boss. Can we have a discussion about what we want this relationship to be? I'm not going to get everything I want. And you're not getting everything you want. It's not because that's the boundary like I declare. Right. This is just not going to work. Right.

But can we, this is why I think it's important for companies to talk about their why and their values. I think it's important for companies to set expectations what it's like to work here. And don't give me this work hard play hard, but like any company that tells you

we work hard play hard. Please run in the opposite direction. Right. Why not work smart play always?

Right. Because working hard sounds unhealthy and playing hard sounds very unhealthy. Right. It's like I worked too hard this week. So now I'm going to get faced this weekend. Very unhealthy at work. Very unhealthy on the weekend. Yeah. It sounds like burnout recipe. Work hard play hard is a stupid philosophy. Right. Works smart play always. Right.

“And the point is, it should, that's why I think it's important for companies to talk about”

their why talk about their values. Be honest about them. Because you'll attract people who will more likely want to work within the boundaries that you're setting. Right. So for example, people often ask me about Amazon. Isn't Amazon a horrible place to work. Right. And I'll say, well, they never lied. This is the expectation. They never lied. Right. They didn't say, oh my god, it's a party every day. Everybody's like, it's just the unicorns and rainbows. Look,

you work three hours and you go home. Right. They never lied. They're pretty public about it's a weekly demanding job with ridiculous hours. And even the people who love it over the last two years, you know, like, it's a really hard place to work. But if you like those conditions, then go work there. And here's some benefits. And there's benefits. Or like, people took what Steve Jobs was in it. Yes. But people who worked there, people who worked at Apple

and just team jobs will all tell you that they were pushed harder than they've ever been pushed in their careers and the things that they accomplished, they wouldn't have been able to accomplish anywhere else but there. Right. So if you're okay with those boundaries, then go work there. But the point is, is these companies tell you what their expectations are, what it's like to work they're upfront. And the reason that's important to do that is to attract people who are more

likely to want to work within those boundaries. Yes. But it's still an act of co-creation. Right.

“And if you don't like it, then then you should leave. Yes. Right. Now enter a different relationship.”

Now the company lied to you. That's different. Yes. Right. Then you do actually have the right to complain and point fingers. And sometimes even like it Amazon, it got a little too far. Sure. Really back a little bit. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Why do you think, I don't want to, I mean, I guess I am generalizing a little bit. But obviously this is in the case for everyone in the

generation, where there is an entitlement or demand energy towards, okay, this is my first year

“in this job, you know, out of college two years out, I don't have all the skills or the experience”

or the results to show that I'm capable of getting this. But I demand and want all of these things that the younger, the older generation wasn't able to do. And then they constantly not generalizing. But a conversation of them wanting raises within the first month more, you know, some of the time off. Sure. This kind of lazy mentality and entitlement. Yeah. Yeah. So there's multiple factors. Of course. Parents is one of them. You know, it's the parenting

philosophy of the generation. That was a big part of it. You know, when you and I got in trouble at school, I, parents said, what did you do now? If a lot of people get in trouble at school now,

their parents say, what's wrong with your teacher? Right. Well, I got suspended. Right. You know,

I was like punished for. Right. Weeks. Right. And, you know, again, sometimes that is the school in the teacher. But there's bad kids too. You know, he kids do stupid things. Sure. No, I cheated. So you know, you got a test. Yeah. Yeah. I got the consequences. Quite rightfully so. But it wasn't like, well, you know, they shouldn't punish you. Let's just, you know, did this or make any excuse for me. So parents is part of it.

Social media is part of it because we're constantly comparing my sister had somebody who worked for her back in a previous job. And he walked into her office and said, can you give me a promotion? And my sister's like, in a work term at home. Right. And he's like, well, hold on.

No, no, no. I don't need, you don't have to give me the additional responsibility. And I don't

even need a salary raise. I just need the new title. So I can put it on LinkedIn. Some of my friends can see come on. Yeah. Holy cow, after well, like a few months, whatever it was. But it was really about the display, the display. So it became one of those metrics like followers or likes, which is how many promotions have you had on LinkedIn, you know? And it's a false sense of accomplishment, though. So, and it's really funny because there's a car Larry here, which is we know that

when there is conspicuous displays of wealth. So name brands, when you were your little Gucci, or, you know, or you're getting a ton or you're getting Chanel bag, there's a reason they put the logos on the outside, right? It's because we like that everybody knows, right? And there's data on this that when you wear your fancy stuff and you put it on and make you feel, you actually get shots of errors, you get bursts of serotonin, because it makes you feel proud and like,

“you're, you know, you're higher status in the community and all of that. That's what can”

speakers display a wealth, too. Makes us feel good. We also know that when you wear a fake, everybody may think that you got that Chanel bag, but you actually get no serotonin. So you have a fake. You know, you actually don't get the feeling of, um, the, right? Because you didn't earn it because it's not real. It's not the real thing. So I wonder if it seems like it seems to make sense that when you have a fake promotion for the title to show

your friends that they're your friends, maybe they may be impressed because they're looking at the logo that you actually know that it's fake. So you actually don't get a feeling of self-confidence. And I think that this is good. And in other words, there's no growth that comes from it. In fact, it might do the opposite. I might make you insecure. Wow. Right? And we know this from kids who get medals who come in last, right? Which is great. You gave them a medal. They know they didn't

deserve it. It actually makes them not feel interesting, right? Because they didn't deserve it. They know that. Um, because they, and the kids who did earn it, it's devalued because you gave one

“to somebody else as well. So parenting is part of it. Social media is part of it. But I think the”

other part of it, which is not considered by older generations, my business partner talked about this all the time, which is when I entered the work field, when you entered the work field, back back in the day, we were legit when we came out of college. We were legit idiots. Right? We had no clue. We thought we had no skill set whatsoever, no discernible value whatsoever. You know, we all started making photo copies. Right. And we had to look up to the people we

worked for because they were going to teach us everything that we needed to know. And we learned a skill set from working in from the people who we worked for. Right? That was how it worked. Yeah. You have a young generation now that's graduating high school in college that enters the workforce with a skill set. And sometimes it's a skill set that the older generation doesn't have. They understand personal branding. They understand social media. They understand how computers work. The entire

than anybody. Right? Look at all the, look at Mr. Beast. He's what? 2223 billions of views. Right?

His numbers are better than every top movie ever. Ever. Yeah. Right? I went to an event once where they were all these like fancy actors. And Mr. Beast was there. And none of them knew who he was. And I was looking at, and I was like doing the numbers, which is if you took like one of the alists celebrities and added up the tonal and people that have seen all of his movies ever. It doesn't even come close to like one video from Mr. Beast. Right? And yet none of them knew who he

was. And they all think they're hot. And like now this kid's the hot. Right? So I think that's another problem. That's not a problem. But that's another consideration, which is that 21-year-old

actually does have a skill set. And they know that that skill set has value. And so they are

entering the workforce knowing that they know something that you don't know. And so they're not coming in as total idiots. And they though there is still the need for them to learn and to,

“to, to, there's the sense that I already know something. And so you should start giving me more”

up front. Wow. Right? And so I think it's right for older generations to recognize that they actually know stuff we don't know. And there are actually good at things better than we were when we were their age. And that has value, just not as much value as they may think because they're still a lot more for them to learn. Sure. Or there's the application of that skill set that needs to be honed. Or maybe that skill set has no value in this job. Right. We've got to get a job to do that.

So I hit, it's, what is the, I mean, we're generalizing this. But what is the greatest skill that the younger generation has going into the workforce? And the thing that will hold them back the most? Well, that's a good question. I think they're probably one of the same to be honest. I think it's a complete comfort and facility with technology integrated into their lives fully integrated which is a blessing in a curse. I'm just a, I'm just a repeating record which is there's a balance

and there's a cost for everything. And the cost for that facility and that ease and that comfort with technology is deep meaning for relationships. Interesting. Um, because they're on the phone 20 hours a day and it's supposed to connect in person or worse. They think being connected and connecting the same thing. I did fight with a 16 year old a couple years ago that they heard her friends and voice messages to each other. And I said, why do you just pick up the phone and call

each other? She goes, we are. I'm like, no, you're not, you're sending voice members to each other. She genuinely believed that that was a conversation. Um, right? It's not a conversation. It's just jointed. It's listening to my answering machine and then leaving somebody is

“messing around there as a machine. And that's what it is just in real time. It's just quicker, right?”

But I think that and when we feel a little lonely or down because we have such facility with the stuff, we go to the stuff to be a balm for that feeling of loss or loneliness we have. It's not that different for any wide, wide alcoholic drink or, you know, which is, alcoholic drink only for a finite number of reasons, which is social stress, career stress, and social stress. It's pretty much it. Um, that is a financial. Um, and, you know,

when, when, and we see it all the time, right? You see, you know, Brittany Brown talks about this as well, which is we've confused vulnerability and broadcasting, which is making a video by yourself in your room, of you crying because you're depressed or you got broken up with or you whenever, you know, and, and you, just being vulnerable and then you have that expression validated by

“likes and views. That's how vulnerability. It's not vulnerability, that's simply broadcasting your”

emotions by yourself. By the way, you're by yourself in your room with your phone, right? That's literally what's happening. Now I challenge people who do that, go have that exact conversation, say, all the same words to a friend in the same room as them. And you'll find that much more difficult.

Is it harder to broadcast to a million people, your emotions than it is to one person in person?

No, it's easier. It's easier to do to broadcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then in this tab, a conversation with a friend, a family member, or someone close to you. I can go on a can hit play. I can record on FaceTime. And I can look in my computer to be like, I'm struggling. I'm really having a hard time. Stop play. I'm going to do that again. Recording. Wow. I'm struggling. I'm really having a hard time.

and I want you guys to know that, you know, I'll get through this.

“And then analyze it afterwards. And then post it, pick picture to go in it. You know, versus going”

a friend and sitting across a table from somebody and going, I'm struggling. And I don't know what's going on. That's excruciating. Wow. That's true vulnerability because there's no vulnerability doing it by yourself. Like there's a perception of vulnerability, just the same way I can turn on a movie and watch an actor playing vulnerability. Right. And I'm like, oh my god, so I'm watching the performance of vulnerability. So for me, the viewer, it's real. Right. And for, and I have no doubt

that the person making the video is feeling something. I get it. But they're creating a piece of art.

But they're, but they're, but they're not, it's not that they're creating a piece of art. It's that they're

not, the thing that that will help them, the thing that will help them get over that feeling and feel safe is not the number of likes that validate the expression. The thing that'll make them feel safe is for them to take the, have the incredibly uncomfortable awful conversation with somebody where they say the same things. And that person sits there and goes, I got you. I got you. Hmm. Right. And like I remember, I have a friend who's, he's, he's an impressive piece of

impressive dude. And, um, and I love him to death. And I didn't want to show him vulnerability because I am so impressed by him. I wanted him to be impressed by me. He's so strong. I want him

to know that I'm strong. Right. Um, I don't want him. And it's not because I, I intellectually

understand the importance of vulnerability, but it's still, I want to, I want my friend to like me.

“I might, my amazingly impressive friend that I think is super impressive to think I'm impressive”

too. And I'm on his level. And I remember I was struggling. I called him up and I go, I'm not in a good place. And he was like, what do you got, but what do you mean? And, um, I remember we were, uh, I, we were out once and I said to me, you know, you're one of those friends that I would call in a hard time. And he said to me, I'd be mad if you didn't. And we had this magical relationship where we all could all do each other. And we open to each other.

There are pretty, and it doesn't at all do any damage to what I think about him. In fact, it makes me think more of him. That's beautiful. Uh, interesting thing, not to interrupt you there, but the interesting thing that you said intellectually, I think all of us think, I don't want to, I want to be on their level or so, I want to be strong or make sure that I'm representing myself in a way that is at their level. And if I'm vulnerable or showing that I'm struggling, then

well, I'd be less than correct. Why is that when actually vulnerability brings us closer together? Well, it's also a story we say in our own heads, right? Because it turns out he's not old buttoned up. And it turns out he's not got every answer. And it turns out everything he touches doesn't turn to gold. And it turns out he's got insecurity. And it turns out he's got fears. It turns out he's got anger. And he's got frustration. And he's got all those things too.

It turns out he's human. Well, and this is where the relationship became beautiful, which is he's more impressive than me. He's a much more impressive guy. And I love him to death and he loves me to death. Not because we're comparing our resumes. It's because we trust each other in old space for each other. And I've seen him at his words and he's seen me at my worst. And that's

“point. And I think that's what social media doesn't allow. And it's, again, forget about the people”

who they're broadcasting to. I have absolutely, you've helped me seeing this has helped me. I know that when I broadcast things, it helps people. I know that. And that has value. Yes. I'm talking about the person who's making the video, who's struggling themselves. How they find safety and salvation. They will not find it in the broadcast. They will at some point have to go to a friend and ask for help. And they can still make the broadcast to serve others. And tie the broadcast.

But that person is kidding themselves if they think that is the way and to find peace and calm in a life. Yeah. There's something that I wanted to go back to. I'm loving all this by the way. Thank you for sharing so openly. Which is about the breakdown in life. And the breakdown, the scenario, the situation that causes us to either fall apart or come together or start to look differently about our life, ask what's the point? I'm the direction we're heading.

I'm curious in your mind. Again, there's been a lot that's happened in the last few years.

awful all the time, but now it's been talked about. Yeah. And then it's moving at a pace that's

ridiculous. It was just very, very scary. Right. It don't mean to diminish it. It's going to pay fast. You know, when the internet showed up, the adoption for internet was years. Yes. The adoption for most technologies is decades. This thing is increasing. It's potential in its feed in weeks and months. Which is it? Which is not giving us time to consider that balanced equation. That's the part I find scary. Yes. It's not the technology, the speed of adoption. Right.

“And the social ripples. And social ripples. Yes. And remember, governments have to adopt it.”

They don't have a choice. Right. So like nuclear weapons. Right. When nuclear weapons showed up, governments had to. Whether they wanted to or not was relevant, they had to because of the other one day. Yes. We don't have a choice. Right. It's the same thing here. Like all the defensive and offensive weapons and AI governments have to do to have a choice. But we actually do have the ability to set pace. And we're not. And there is fear of being left out. There's massive

filmo. So one company's investing in an heavenly other was like, we have to invest in an heavenly, but because they are. So we have to. Right. And so there's fullmo and fear of being left behind. And some of it's true, but not necessarily the pace and blindness, which we're throwing

the technology at our companies and our businesses. And I think history will always repeat

this up, which is when you do something blindly and too quickly, at some point it's going to break. Right. Right. And so we don't know what or how that looks, what a when it's going to happen, but it's probably going to happen. Right. I mean, think it, you know, nature of wars in balance and seeks when we call it limit all times. This is why when this is stock market crash we call it

“a correction. Right. Because there is imbalance. And it finds correction. Like that's how”

Mother Nature works. She always finds balance at some point. Right. You don't know why. But it is going to happen. Right. And I think that the imbalance that we're creating with the speed of the adoption of the technology that we don't fully understand, the balance is going to happen.

Yeah. I don't know how. I don't know what. I don't know what's going to look like. No one

can predict it. There's a lot of people trying. And there's no way to slow it down because now the genies out of the bag. No one's going to be like, you know what? I'll be the one to slow it down. Right. Let's stop this area. Yeah. You know, government can put some guardrails on. Europe is actually attempting to put some guardrails on, which I think is helpful. Interesting. Yeah. American not so much. Right. You know, we think guardrails are anti-capitalists, which they're

not. They're just guardrails. Yeah. Exactly. We can debate where the guardrails are. Look guardrails are good. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. You mentioned early on. I like that you talked about the fear that causes a lot of social ripples with these different things that happen. Right. Especially around AI or around pandemics or around more. Right. You've mentioned a few of these things. With everything we've seen in the last few years, which one do you think will cause more fear

and more emotional reactions or social ripples between another virus or pandemic like experience,

“war or AI and the celebration of AI? I think in community quality is bigger than all of them,”

which what is that? In community quality. In community quality will create more sulfur ripples and fear than these three. Yeah. Just look at what's been happening with the past 30, 40 years. The rise of populism, the rise of strong man leaders, the cynicism about democracy. And it's not the democracy or capitalism or bad. It's that this version of democracy, this version of capitalism, not democracy, this version of capitalism that we have. That was largely engineered

in the '80s and '90s by people like Jack Welch. And we're how we look in the end democratic presidents at the time. Is woefully imbalanced and it is, it is lopsided. You know, the stock market used to be a place that the average working American could share in the wealth of the nation. And now the stock market has become the bastion for the few. You know, CEOs who were incentivized by the price of an equity work hard to make other people rich. And often don't include

the workers or worse use the workers to help balance those books, though the use of mass layoffs, which was a relatively modern phenomenon that didn't exist in the United States prior to the 1980s. Really didn't exist. I mean, they were layoffs, but not to balance the books. They were used for existential reasons. Like we're going bankrupt. We have to do something drastic. Right. Versus, oh, we missed our numbers. You lose your job. Well, that didn't exist.

And so we have a very woefully flawed version of capitalism that is not the capitalism that made America great. Nor is the capitalism that Thomas Jefferson was enamored by as written by Adam Smith.

and the actors strike, which is people working hard to make a small group of people very wealthy

“and being left out. Nobody minds that a CEO is highly paid. The problem is is that it's the”

system of how they get paid that you're not including and bringing people with you. That's the problem. That you're making money off of their back without them, without them letting feel like they're sharing in the spoils that they help create. That's the problem. And we know how we got here. It's because, again, it goes back to metrics. Right. The way we measured money was very easy. This sort of going off on a tangent. Well, if we really want to talk about like your tangents, you know,

which is, I used, is very easy. This has been talked about. This is not a new idea.

I would broadcast a TV show and I could count how many people viewed it.

Ratings. And then I could get picked up for syndication and I can count everything and I can give you a percentage of all the things that I can count. Where is when we went to streaming? And everybody, when streaming for a show-up, they thought it would be minor. So they didn't. It wasn't built in science. Yeah. It was considered an alternative media. Don't worry about it. Now, but now when something gets a billion views, there's no direct advertising dollars applied to that show.

And there's no syndication applied to that show. And even though that show may,

“we can't tell that that's why somebody subscribed because the subscription made the money, not the show,”

even though the show gets more views than everybody else. And so, and Netflix and none of the streamers tell you the numbers of the views, which is really a bad idea because it goes back to metrics and numbers, which is if you can count it, you need to share the numbers so that we can establish a value. And if we can establish a value, we can say what it's worth. Right? So hiding

numbers is never a good thing when it comes to playing with people's income. What do you think?

Capitalism should be the new definition of capitalism should be then? Well, it's everything that I write about in every single one of my books. The infinite game, the infinite game, the leaders he less and start with why all are attempting to chip away that you know start with

“why was the company should be driven by higher calling and higher purpose, not just making money.”

It's totally anti-milk and freedom and in Jack Welch. I mean, I hope to undo everything Jack Welch ever did. You know, leaders at last was about taking care of the people in our care, you know, that leadership is not about being in charge, but taking care of those in your charge. And the infinite game is recognizing that this game of business cannot be one so stop playing it like it's a finite game and stop using people as pawns and start being grateful that

they're helping you advance something bigger than yourself. And I laid out there, you know, I lay out what the principles of capitalism should be in the chapter of it, where I've done Milton Friedman. I offer an alternative list of hierarchy and priorities. Come with what they are. I mean, I mean, I'm here. You say you had to offer it a share. Chapter five, or pages of them. Capitalism should advance a cause,

protect people and generate profit. In that order. One more time. Advance a purpose, protect people, generate profit. So the responsibility of business is to use its will and resources to advance a greater cause than itself, protect the people in places in which it operates and generate more resources so that it can continue doing all those things for as long as possible. An organization can do whatever it likes to build its business so long as it

is responsible for the consequences of its actions. That is, for me, what capitalism shouldn't be. And we're not seeing that right now. No. It's the opposite order. It's generate profit. Advance a purpose on your website. It's called marketing. And protect people, you know, when it suits us. Interesting. Not like foraging of capitalism we have right now is pretty bastardized. So the, I'm hearing you say the income inequality and where that's heading is a greater

fear and risk than another pandemic, AI and war. The whenever you have a huge delta between those that have and those that don't have, you have revolution. Wow. This is happening all over the world.

world. There's a rejection of democratic values because they've confused democratic values in

the version of capitalism we have that conflated the two. Right. So what usually happens in a

“scenario like this and how long does it take for that thing to occur? What is history taught us?”

There's going to be a revolution really around the whole world. Come on. No. I mean, come on. I mean, January 6th, these are not the site. Let me listen to the messaging of the populists. It's the haves versus the have not. Yeah. You know? And the left needs to listen. You know, they're, they're, they're quick to, they're left in the right of both quick to criticize the politics, the leaders of each other's movements. But they're missing the, they're not listening to

why people are interested in those messages. They both think, both sides think the other side

are sheeple. And both think the other side are blind, deaf and dumb. And yet neither side is paying attention as to why they both have their own rabbit followings. And problem is as most of the country is moderate. But most of our nation is pretty moderate. Most of our nation is pretty fine and to be willing to find compromises. Not really, you know, reasonable. And yet the, the, the angry extremes on both sides have seem to set the tone. They're playing a fine eye game. But, but,

you know, I, I'm genuinely afraid of, and I don't know how it looks or when it happens or, but I'm

“I think, yeah, I think when we start ripping, when we start accusing each other of being”

traders, I mean, the left and the right, literally say, call each other traders or un-American. Uh, that's not good. That's not good. That's not good. That's not good. That's not good. That's not good.

That's not good. That's not good. I've got a few final questions for you. This has been powerful.

You're so glad you're here. Thank you for opening up and sharing. We could go on for hours. This is a question I asked you before that is called the three truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It is that last day on earth for you. And you get to live as long as you want, extend your life as long as you want and create and do all the things you want to do. Yeah. Uh, but for whatever reason for the last day, and you've accomplished everything or not and just live beautiful days

without accomplishments. But you can't take, uh, our, our excuse me, everything you've created has to go with you. This conversation gone. Your books, they're gone. It's onto another world or somewhere else. They're not in this world. Everything you've ever said are done, we don't have access to anymore. But you get to leave behind three lessons. I call it the three truths. Three things that you know from your experiences are true to you that you would want to leave behind as lessons to the

world. What would be those three truths for you? Um, uh, really love the people who love you.

“Really love them. Um, learn all the human skills that you need to be a good human being.”

Um, who's being human is hard. And, um, and have as much fun as possible. And when I mean by having much fun as possible, doesn't mean playing video games and taking vacation every moment. But make jokes, make jokes, have a sense of humor. Like in, in it, you can't, you can't be angry and laugh at the same time. You know, Stephen Colbert talked about this in it. You can't. Like, there's something magical in a high-stress situation as a joke. And, you know, whether it's

gallows humor or whether it's you find the absurdity in something, you know, it's like just make sure to maintain your sense of humor. Yeah. So love those who love you desperately. Learn the human skills to be a great human being and make sure that you appreciate that life really is fun. We're a thousand conversations. I don't think I've heard them in that in that way. Those three tourists, I've asked every time. And then I didn't expect that from you.

It's those really beautiful. I appreciate you sharing those three. Um, I'll acknowledge you, Simon, for your constant personal growth. You know, think it. You're constant personal growth. You know, I've watched you for years, you know, be a phenom on the internet with TED Talk and books and all, you know, all the things and accolades. Uh, you know, I've been at events with you. I've had you on the show. We know a lot of the same people. And, you know, but I really love just watching

you personally grow as a human being. Speak about these things. Loving people desperately.

and extremely smart talking about humor and fun is awesome for me to hear. And being the best human

you can be knowing that this is a challenging existence or it can be unless you choose to learn skills and overcome it. So I'm really acknowledging for your personal growth and help now that we're more neighbors. I'll run into you more frequently and get to give you more hugs. So I really acknowledge you

“for everything. And I also acknowledge you for this, which I think is interesting as you before you”

came on here today. I acknowledge you for not having something to be productive in right now. Of course you've got, you know, book in your podcast and, you know, content that you're creating. But you're not like, I'm working on this massive project and I've got to do it. I've got this deadline and it's got to be this way. You're like, yeah, I'm allowing ideas to come to me. I'm allowing things to form. I'm building deeper relationships. I'm connecting with my girlfriend. I'm doing these

things. Are you not afraid for that? Because I think it's hard at times to allow ourselves to not be

overly productive and always creating something and always trying to strive to be on top.

So I acknowledge you for being in that space. I think it's beautiful thing, too. Well, that's very nice of you. I think it's important to know you work for, right? So I would only have stress to come up to write another book if I believe that I worked for my publisher. But I don't. And I would only have stress about the amount of content creation I have to produce if I believe that I work for the algorithm. But I don't. I work for the

people who share this world with me. I work for my friends. I work for my family. I work for the people who see the world the way I see it. And I live, try and work very hard to live a life of service. And you know, the way I manage my social media is I say something that I think is additive.

I never pile on because there's no point. I'm very prescriptive that I will speak if I have

something that I believe is additive. And I have nothing to say and I have nothing to write.

“Then I'm going to say nothing and we're going to write nothing. And I think you have to know”

who your customer is and then be fiercely customer oriented. And I use the word customer in quotes. Like if you're a parent, you know, your kids are your customer. If you're a teacher, your students are your customer. You know, if you're a nurse, your patients are your customer. And I think you have to be fiercely, fiercely customer focused. And in my chosen line of work, my customer is the army who chooses to stand shoulder to shoulder with,

made a build the world that we imagine a world in which people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and then the day filled by the work that they do. Hmm. Yeah. I love them, man. I want everyone to support you and you've got a number of great books. The impending game is one that I think the themes have been spoken about throughout here over and over again of how we can start reimagining our own personal lives, or career,

industries, you know, everything, the world. So I want people to get this, start with why obviously is that as a phenom that everyone should have as well if they haven't got it. Your Simoncene.com has got all your content and information. I love your Instagram and your LinkedIn is as massive as well. If you guys are up there, you know, if you don't human skills,

“exactly. So if you want to develop better human skills, follow wherever you're on social media,”

and all the things, all the things, all the things, the podcast, bit of optimism, and check it out there if you want to go deeper as well. But how else can we be of service to you today? Do the things like the being of service to me is to, I'm one person who puts out a vision of the world and some tools to help build it. But until leaders lead with those tools until we, and by leader, I don't mean those in charge. I mean those who choose to take on the awesome

responsibility to see those around us rise, which can happen at alien level inside an organization or in our society. And what I need people to do is do it. Because I'm my work is intangible. And I need people to make it tangible. Yeah, found a question. Yep. What's your definition of greatness? Um, I think it's everything we've talked about. My definition of greatness is is living a life of service. And, you know, the people that I think are great,

devoted themselves to the lives of others. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as add free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend

on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about

how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.