How great leaders are created | Sneak Peek at Tony Robbins' Most Intimate Event Tony Robbins

if you're listening to this podcast it means you're ready no more than ready to have a major breakthrough in your business you're hungry for change and you're hungry for growth and that's why you're feeding your mind right now with all this valuable information but to drive those changes to be really smart about what you're doing and to make the right choices before you take massive action you need help from someone who's been there someone who's gonna coach you through it even just someone to get you started on your journey that's why Tony Robbins is offering

a free one-to-one business strategy session from one of his top business coaches a $600 value completely free no strings attached that's right if you're listening right now you can go to Tony Robbins comm slash CEO and sign up for a free session with a member of Tony's team who's helped business owners like yourself overcome their obstacles and set them on the path to success [Music] there are two types of people those that see what they want and those that see what stand in the way of what they want which type of person are you this

is just one of the questions that leadership experts simon Sinek challenges you to get real about because when it comes to making real change in your life you have to start with yourself why do you get up in the morning how do you embody the vision you have for your life and what value are you bringing to the table hey guys it's a New York editorial director for Robbins Research International in this episode of the Tony Robbins podcast I'm sitting down with Simon to break down his ten rules for success simon Sinek is the author

of four best-selling books start with why how great leaders inspire everyone to take action leaders eat last why some teams pull together another stone together is better a little book of inspiration and find your why a practical guide to discovering purpose for you and your team Simon's TED talk on how great leaders inspire action has become the third most watched talk of all time on Ted comm gathering more than 35 million views and his unconventional and innovative views on business and leadership have enabled him to work closely with a range of clients from the military

to massive international conglomerates to even members of Congress in this episode Simon dishes out the practical advice and philosophical teachings that will get you to think act and communicate like a leader because real transformation starts with you it's about knowing when to break the rules stacking the deck in your favor bringing your most authentic self to the table learning how to be the last to speak and always striving to embody the values that you set out for others to follow [Music] all right well Simon welcome to the Tony Robbins podcast thanks for having me so

I would love to go through something that we found on YouTube very interesting it's called Simon cynics ten rules for success and you know we watched this and we were going through noir thinking wow this is it's catchy there's like a there's even a like a still it's got lots of views I think actually right now has won one point six million views and we were sort of wondering you know it looks like a compilation from a fan and this is not actually something that you created yourself right that is correct I didn't make that

but I have to tell you I'm so proud and I love that somebody did you know I can't say that I'm surprised I'm grateful and I'm proud but I can't say that I'm surprised because this is what happens well everything that I write about and talk about you know when I talk about starting with why how people join the movement and join the cause and people invest their own time and energy to help spread the message and I'm simply a messenger and people are using my words to talk about what they want to talk about

you know so here's somebody who's interested in helping others succeed here's somebody who's interested in giving serving people and giving content away and the fact that they found some of my work useful and helping them spread their message that's what's happening here and I and I really love that and it's happened before you know the Millennial thing that I did that also went viral online which was crazy to watch happen I interview but it was a it was somebody else who cut that one answer out of the out of the long interview and put it

on YouTube and then somebody else put it on Facebook and that's when I went viral but I had nothing to do with it and I and I absolutely loved it and I think it speaks to the point that when you have a purpose cause of relief when you know your why your responsibility is to preach and preach and preach and preach and other people will join you in the spreading of that message it's the it's the people who are selfish it's the people who like this is my content and you have to pay to use

my content well then no one else can do it but you you know yeah so I have a very sort of open source view on my ideas and I love that that happened yep and I love it actually kind of goes into one of the first ones one of your your ten rules for successes yeah well the first one according to you to yield to Authority is break the rules oh yeah absolutely the there's a whole idea that the rules are there for for normal usage and the rules are there to sort of help guide

us but but we have to know when to break the rules and so what I what I totally reject is the flagrant breaking of rules simply to break the rules or people who who are difficult to break the rules and they like to wrap themselves in this well I am an entrepreneur I'm a rule breaker or I'm and I kind of class but not when you hurt other people you know so I'll tell you two quick stories both of them are true it's actually a story that happened in the Air Force so there's a simple

rule in the United States Air Force that US planes may not fly through Iranian airspace right it makes it's a good rule yeah and and there was a case of one kc-135 tanker where the crew actually got a little lost and accidentally drifted into Iranian airspace right this is bad and they got in trouble there's another story of a kc-135 where there was an aircraft that was running out of fuel and they needed to get there because it's a tanker they needed to get to that aircraft and the quickest way to get to that aircraft

was to just cut cut across the corner of Iranian airspace right as opposed to going around it so they made the decision to cut across the Iranian airspace and and they did the right thing so they knew that they might get in trouble because the rule was broken but the point is that the context matters like technically they both broke the same rule but but not really because that one of them got lost and the context the other one is that they were trying to do the right thing to save the life of somebody else

right sure so so yes I absolutely believe in breaking the rules but not through stupidity first of all and also not just through flagrant violations for the sake of breaking the rules there has to be a moral or ethical cause that's driving the breaking of that rule which is why I believe in the idea of knowing your wife its purpose cause our belief that as US and we are entitled to figure every which way out to achieve our why and drive our cause as long as it doesn't hurt anybody and as long as it doesn't

get in the way of other people doing whatever it is they're doing so do you believe you know in a business context that somebody should pre frame their audience when they go in to say a meeting and they're brainstorming and they want to do something that's a little bit you know outside of the ordinary outside of the status quo do they lead with the why does that help people understand and help them socialize to the person's idea always always I I rarely if ever go to a meeting where I don't say why I'm in the

meeting sometimes I call the meeting if it's my meeting I say let me tell you why I wanted to have this meeting and I talked about my purpose of my cause and my vision I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired to go to work feel safe when they're there and return home fulfilled at the end of the day and the meetings that I will have are because I meet people or meet companies that I believe could help me work to achieve this vision right and likewise

if somebody else called the meeting I'll say I'll either ask can you tell me why you called this meeting and at some point I would say let me tell you why I decided to come to this meeting because and I'll frame it in terms of my why so there's always a context and I'm very open about being selfish about it like let me tell you I'll say I'm being very selfish I want your help to build this movement I want your help to help me build this world that I can imagine I cannot do it

alone and I think what some resource or you know IP that you have can help drive this a lot quicker you know sure so I find that being very very honest about something and setting the context allows gives people it gives people it gives me permission to break rules or do things a little differently for sure so if you have a you know you have a purpose you have an outcome and result that you want coming out of the meeting going into it with that idea in mind I mean that certainly helps people help serve

that right but in a larger in a larger framework do you believe that everybody should have like a mission statement cuz you just stated yours very clearly but I think if you asked a single person you know anywhere you'd say okay what's your mission statement was your purpose I think when people would find that very difficult to you know to come up with so what it would you know do you sort of help people understand that is there a process that you think people should go through in order to get to their why for sure

I mean this is what I discovered myself I reached a point in my life where I lost my passion for my own work and people gave me stupid advice like do what you love I'm like thank you I'm doing the same thing and I don't you know find your passion great thanks what I'm supposed to do with that right yeah so so it was through my own struggles that I learned a the importance of knowing your why and and more important I learned how to help my friends find theirs and my friends asked me to

help their friends find theirs and he used to do it for a hundred bucks on the side absolutely you have to know your why that's that's what I wrote in start with why that's what that's what absolutely I believe in that and there is a process and I can there's a couple ways we actually have a thing on our website let's start with why.com which is a whi discovery course in September we have a book coming out called find your Y which takes the whole process of finding your Y and is a guide to help

people find it but I can also tell you a really fun way that gets you in the ballpark right now if you like yeah that's so find a friend you love somebody who who you know would always be there for you you could call them at 3 o'clock morning it with absolute confidence that they'll take the call that kind of friend right and this doesn't work with spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends or something or siblings that's those relationships are too close but but a friend that you love and ask them this question why are we

friends right and they're gonna look at you like you're crazy what do you mean why are we friends and then what you do is you switch to the question what ironically to find why you actually ask what you say come on what is it about me that I know that you would be there for me no matter what and they will struggle they'll be like I don't know and it's not that they're struggling it's that we're asking them to put into words something that exists in the nonverbal part of their brain and the limbic part

of the brain and so what they'll do is is they'll start hemming and hawing and and you have to play devil's advocate you have to you can't help them and you can't let anybody else help them and then they'll start describing you though though I don't know you're you're funny you're smart I trust you you're reliable you're always there for me and you go good that's the definition of a friend what is it about me that I know you'd be there for Matt no matter what in other words you play devil's advocate right and they'll

do the same thing they'll keep describing you and this could go on for a while but at some point they will give up and they will stop describing you and they'll start describing themselves and this is what my friends said to me they said I don't know Simon all I know is I don't even have to talk to you I can just be in the same room in you as you and I feel inspired and I got goose bumps in other words they will put into words the value you have in their life and you

will have an emotional response you may well up you may get goose bumps whatever it is they touched a nerve this is your Y and you can do this with multiple friends and they'll either say the exact same thing or they'll come very close to saying the exact same thing because your why is the thing you give to the world it's the value you offer and the reason your friends love you is because it's you the value you offer is the value have in their lives and so it's it's a fun way to get in

the ballpark with what your why is that is really nice because if they help you verbalize because like you said you're too close you can't quite identify it they help you they help you see what you cannot see yourself yep in terms that go a lot deeper than just what it means to be a good friend yeah so you mentioned that because when I think of good friends and I think of people who have known me for a very very long time and so the characteristics that I might have that they that they like in

me they might have noticed a very long time ago and are still around today but aren't necessarily characteristics that I would pinpoint so for instance you know Tony actually does this or used to do this at a date with destiny which is one of his big events that's the one that was featured in the Netflix documentary I am NOT your guru and it's this process that you go through where you think back to when you were a child so think back when you were I mean some people can remember as far back as five but

say you know any time in that age period between like you know five and eight nine ten years old what did you want to be when you grew up like Simon what did you want to be when you grew up I wanted to be an astronaut perfect why did you want to be an astronaut so I've done this exercise you have with everybody all this personal stuff great I know this happened to me where somebody from a stage asked me what did I want to be and I said I wanted to be national then from

the stage they said why and I never thought about it and the answer that game is because I wanted to go out to space I wanted to see the world from a perspective that others don't get to see it and come back and talk about the magic that I saw and and I realized that's exactly what I do so I see the world from a defective yeah and I share with people the perspective that I see so they can see the magic and people and then the world that I see and I want to take

them on the journey with me and I sort of dawn to me was sort of really powerful that though I never went to space I'm absolutely an astronaut yep and you know what's the know fast forward fast forward ten years what did you want to be when you or a teenager was it the same or did it change like what did I want to be when I was a teenager I wanted to go into special effects I wanted to be a special effects supervisor and I know about what was your reason for that do you

know I was a big Steven Spielberg fan and I love the stories that he told and I don't know actually I don't know but I remember being fascinated by special effects and I was a you know I called a local special effects studio New York City and I arranged for me to come visit my parents and I was just a kid and my parents like took me in and went to get a tour of the special effects studio and everything and yeah I was into that for a while well I mean this may be a

limb but cuz mine when I was really young was I wanted to be a storyteller you know like like a Homeric sitting around the campfire storyteller so I was born in the wrong era right one of the reasons is because I wanted to bring joy and delight in other people I wanted to elicit emotion in others and it sounds like you know being a special-effects professional you would bring amazement to people right like people would be constantly in awe and and wowed by what you're producing in the world yes I mean there's definitely something to

do with the story and the amazement in there for sure yeah yeah okay one last one what about your gear what about your mid 20s or early to mid 20s because those are very formative years and a lot of people who are first you know you know listening to this podcast but also kind of now seeing you know Tony Robbins as somebody who could help them during that time period and I know you focus you know you're talkin Millennials was extremely popular but a lot of people in their 20s are also thinking what do I

want to be when I grow up even though you know in a lot of ways they're technically already grown up but they're thinking about their mission right they're thinking about what they want to add to the world so what about you and your 20s a fighter jet pilot no I I started my career at an ad agency and I knew that I wanted to do something beyond advertising and I wanted to be I wanted to start my own business I knew that and I saw myself as a much more sort of as a marketer and

and I had a unique perspective or a different perspective on how marketing worked which is I believed it had to start on the inside I believe even back then I believed how how your employees felt about the company mattered had to come first and I remember I wanted to go start my own business because I wanted to bring this internal focus to organizations before they focused on the ad side so that was very much a driver for me I was I'm fascinated by people throughout my whole twenties I was I was learning what makes people

take and make them buy this and not that and and I realized that how people feel inside their job really does matter before it goes outside yeah so this one exercise I encourage everybody to sort of do this at home if you're listening it's really interesting just looking back on what your what your values what your mission statement was when you were younger and seeing how what you're doing today is or is not aligned with your why right yeah it's so true yeah so Simon you mentioned that you spend a lot of your 20s sort

of taking input right like listening and observing and one of your ten rules for success is be patient the things worth while in life take time and the other one is the be the last to speak right so we're going to listen can you elaborate a little bit on either of this sure so the B lent the last to speak you know we're often told everybody's told you have to listen more you have to listen more you have to be a better listener you got to learn to listen well everybody's always telling us we have

to learn to listen right but at the end of the day we're social animals and communication is two ways we we listen and we communicate we listen and we speak right that's how communication happens and and I think it's a better way of framing it comes from a story that I heard about Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela is an important case study in the world because he is universally regarded as a great leader you know different people are viewed by different nations in different ways but did but nelson mandela mandela was universally in his universally regarded

as a great leader right so he was actually the son of a tribal chief and a journalist once asked him how did you learn to be a great leader and he explained how when he was a kid he remembered going to tribal meetings with his father and he remembers two things one they've always sat in a circle and two his father was always the last to speak and I think that is a better way of framing being a better listener which is to practice being the last to speak because so often so often even well-intentioned

leaders you know they walk into a meeting and say hey guys this is what's happened here's the problem this is what I think we should do but I'm interested in what you have to say to wait right so there's a there's a there's a there's a skill set that comes from when everybody else is speaking that you don't agree or disagree you don't give away what you're thinking but rather you take in all the input and you ask questions to better understand where their perspective comes from and at the end not only do you help

make everyone feel heard but you actually get the benefit of all their thinking and so so I like the idea instead of telling people you need to be a better listener I like to say to people you need to practice being the last to speak I think it's a better framework yeah so you mentioned you know if you're in a group setting being a last to speak and sort of you know getting value from other people and letting them you know input their their thoughts into the conversation and one of your ten rules is stack

the deck right so surround yourself with people who want to be with you being an environment that highlights your strengths what if you walk into that room and you're the last to speak but the people in that room aren't necessarily upping the ante if you know what I mean right so how do you let's say you're a business owner or you're in a corporate environment how do you stack your deck how do you make sure that the people in that room are going to you know have the ideas that that are that are not worth

listening to but that are gonna essentially build something greater all right what's what's kind of like a dream team I mean Charles Duhigg does a lot of work right with group dynamics and what's the best job dynamic and I know Google has done a lot of studies on this but what's your what's your sort of approach to creating that that group so stacking the deck means putting yourself in a position of natural strength right it means not trying to convince people that they need to do business with you but rather inspire people to do business

with you so a long time ago when my career was just starting and I had no no books no TED talk no nothing I remember you know my work was starting to get some traction and people would introduce me to somebody and this is a true story somebody I was on the phone with a potential client and he said to me convince me why I should hire you and my answer was don't write because basically somebody who's forcing me to defend my work forcing me to convince him why I should hire me that means I

can flash-forwards and everything I recommend he's gonna say convince me why I should do this as opposed to wanting to learn my perspective right so I'm a great believer of following the law of diffusion of innovations which is I want to surround myself with the early adopters the people who believe what I believe they may not agree with the the tactics they may have differences of opinion they may not think that I've got a fully baked picture but they're like you're onto something I think there's something really interesting here and I would love to work

with you and see what we can do who understand that understand that it's an imperfect process and that's what stacking the deck means it means working with people who are more likely to work together with you rather than forcing you constantly to defend everything you say and everything you do in other words it's based on trust and common values that's what stacking the deck means it's it's the same mentality as hiring for for culture not just for skills you know it's the same mentality which is you're stacking the deck that someone will work will more

likely work out of love and passion and will work hard to solve the problem rather than just keep demanding more money or or criticizing or being a being a thorn in the side just because they happen to be high-priced and and and have some skillset that that they helped somebody else do you know if they believe what you believe they'll put their blood sweat and tears into it that's exactly right so that's what stacking the deck means it it doesn't mean cheating what it means is putting yourself in a position where success is a more

likely scenario simply because you've surrounded yourself with people who believe what you believe and share your vision and share your values or you share theirs and working with clients who feel the same way and that doesn't mean that you can't explain your work but but when somebody does convince me why I should hire you like don't hire me yeah yep yeah and you mention you know when you work with clients too you need to have that same belief system and I think a lot of times especially when people are first starting out and they're working

with you know third parties or let's say they're trying to you know sell their own services they keep saying yes right and one of the you know we have a whole thing Tony Robbins we use like the power of know like learn when to fire your clients or not accept the job to begin with and you know the things and I especially you know young people are into this all the time but they tell people what they think they want to hear and that's one of your rules is you need to be authentic so in

some cases I think people do that and it you know kind of backfires on them early on but in the longer and it pays off you have any examples of that or you know sort of yeah so being authentic it's a word that's thrown around too much right and so it's bust its meaning sure but what what it really means is saying and doing the things you actually believe and being honest is actually really easy all it means is you tell the truth that's it right and that doesn't mean have to be mean when people

keep talking aboot all honesty nobody says honesty has to be brutal it just has to be truth so when somebody says do I look fat in these jeans you can say I like the other jeans on you better right yeah it's true and it's honest but it's not mean right it has to be constructive purpose yeah exactly right so so I think when we talk about being authentic what it means is not trying to bend ourselves and nuts and pretend something we aren't simply to land their business that's like you know saying you love the

ballet because you're out on a date with somebody who loves the ballet when really you hate the ballet it's good you know the truth will always be revealed in time so why not just out with it in the early days you know absolutely because all you revealed later on is that you lied yep that's it yep and then you become untrustworthy then you become well at least at least somebody will doubt you know well it becomes selfish doesn't it I lied so I could win the business yeah that benefits you but I'm in the equation

as well you were trying to help me help me without whatever your service was that's all you saw me was it was as a dollar sign you know you just saw me as you know it's like that that Looney Tunes cartoon where you know Daffy duck's really hungry and he looks at bugs buzzy bunny and he looks like a turkey yeah you know that's all you see you see me as a dollar sign I thought you're trying to help me you know so it's it's it's in an inauthentic and disingenuous yeah so as part of

that too is I believe accountability right so one of your tips is take accountability you know you can take credit for the good when you also take accountability and you take blame for the bad what is maybe an example of something in the workplace or for a business owner that you think we're that principals is applied so it's really funny you know like I have a friend who invests money and if he does well he'll tell me it's because he's a genius and he does badly he'll tell me because it's the market somebody else's fault

yep yeah so you you can't have it both ways you can either be a genius or an idiot right either one of those I was a genius I was an idiot or I was really lucky I was really unlucky the market went in my favor the market didn't go to my favorite but you can't mix and match the logics you know so you need to be lucky or unlucky or you can be a genius or an idiot and I think that's all it means that you can accept credit for when things go well if you're

willing to say ooh my bad when things go wrong you know sure but I think you have to earn that right and and accountability just means you take responsibility for your actions that's what it means and so if something goes haywire well I mean 'you see this in leadership a lot you know you see someone struggling and said yelling at them you say to them you know what my bad I didn't give you enough training or I that you knew more than you did and that's that's my bad my bad I'm so sorry to put

you in a situation where you were more likely to do badly I feel awful as opposed to yelling and screaming you know well cuz then they'll go into fight or flight and then also they'll get defensive there are there are times when discipline is fine and there are times where somebody did screw up and there are times where but but it's amazing how often that when something goes wrong it's it's amazing how we the person who's in the position of authority takes no responsibility in that in that like you think about hiring and firing right

we hire somebody thinking they're amazing they don't work out and then we tell them that they're stupid and that they're idiots and their performance is down and we fire them well do we take no accountability that we completely misjudged the situation who maybe hire them based on all the wrong factors like as opposed why can't we say I'm really really really sorry I think I've made a huge mistake here because I'm not sure you're a good fit for the organization and and I fear that you may feel the same way because I can't imagine you're

happy and your performance has been suffering and I kind of mentioned that feels good so how do I help you land in a place where you're gonna be happier you know but instead we walk in and we make an argument and we ask them to leave and we destroy their confidence on the way out and we take no accountability for the fact that we had something to do with that scenario yeah and when you do that as a leader too and you take accountability and you say my bad you're you're demonstrating humility right and humility

I think of something that's so interesting today because we are in a world that has typically rewarded this sort of aggressive masculine dominance like I am I am right right listen to me so what you know are you seeing sort of a transformation culturally and professionally that's starting to reward humility and what's this or psychological effect of when you express humility what does that do to other people well look it's embarrassing that I have a career right I talk about trust and cooperation and there should be no demand for my work you know so let's

see it as an opportunity that there is demand for this and that it has been missing and now people want more of it so it's not that there's been a transformation we've always been attracted to the humble leader the humble leader is able to build a more long-lasting organization where the the bombastic command and control they may have results but in the short term it's just it just can't last you know so it's not like I'm it's not like this is a new idea that humility is a good thing we've seen it throughout history and

we're drawn to people who were humble because it makes us feel like they're human you know it also impact makes us feel empowered that they sort of give us the opportunity to help mold our own careers and our own jobs and our own lives and make decisions in our own work rather than them always knowing more in them doing best you know we of course we like people who are humble because they allow us to exercise our own our own strengths and and and talents so that's not a new thing but I am glad that

there is a movement to reject many of the business philosophies that were popularized in the 80s and 90s which is what talking about remember the 80s and 90s were boom years of relative peace and many of the business philosophies that were espoused back then that are still normal today were for those times the whole idea of being bombastic and greed is good and and these sort of overly masculine sort of aggression in management style even the whole idea of using mass layoffs you know using people's livelihoods to balance the books this year on a regular

basis did not exist in the United States prior to the 1980s it did not exist so the good news is is what what didn't what work then cannot work now and I'm glad to see that people are starting to be open that maybe those business philosophies that were so so that are still common today that were popularized you know over and over a generation ago or losing favor because quite frankly they just don't work anymore yeah and there's so much transparency not to I mean if you are doing something you know as a business that

you know that is something that is not in alignment with what people are demanding now culturally you get called out on it I mean we hear about it every day yeah exactly and and people are patient with you if they see you is humble and honest you're allowed to make mistakes it's when you present yourself as perfect then every slip-up you're it's over you know yeah so presenting this idea of perfection you talked about this quite a bit in terms of social media you know people have this filter and everything is you know unicorns and

rainbows on on social media and they're constantly comparing themselves to other people but one of your rules for success is that you should not be using others as a benchmark for success because the goal isn't to be the best every day right that's like a finite construction that the infinite player knows that there are ups and downs and sometimes you're ahead and sometimes not so right can you talk a little bit more about how you need to outdo yourself and not other people or so there's no such thing as winning business right you can win

a game of baseball right you can win at tennis because the game is over you know when the square has the higher score at the end of however whatever the period is and that's it we all go home the game is over but there's no such thing as winning the game of business the game is infinite and so I get a kick out of listening to people talk about beating their client beating their competition or being number one or being the best based on what agreed-upon score based on what agreed-upon metric based on what agreed-upon

time frame you could be ahead and you can be a behind but you can never be the best because it's a temporary it's temporary right and so it's a fool's game too to try and outdo your competition especially when you're picking your own metrics and you're picking your own timeframes so I may say I'm gonna I was the best this year but over the course of ten years you're way way way behind so what I find is that the the best longest lasting organizations that have the most success over time understand as you said sometimes

their head and sometimes their behind sometimes their product is better and sometimes their their competitions product is better but the goal isn't to necessarily beat their competition it's to outdo themselves and that doesn't mean that you ignore your competition you can absolutely watch them and you can make tactic Changez but but it's it's crazy to make a strategic change because of a reaction that your your competitor does you either go always gonna be johnny-come-lately or you're gonna be all over the place and you're assuming that they're running a rational business you assume that they know

that they know what they're doing we have no idea of their internal politics not to mention the fact that you don't even know who all your competitors are you're picking based on the ones you know that's not everyone then that doesn't include all the startups that you've never heard of so so who are you really competing against abstraction right so we can drive ourselves nuts so I found that the best organizations look to improve their systems to make their systems better than how they operated the week or the month or the year before and to

make their product better than it was the month or the year before and that the way they hire the way they communicate the way everything they're doing they're trying to make better than themselves it's a constant state of improvement just like human beings wouldn't you hate to be friends with someone who's trying to be better than you would you rather be friends with somebody who's just trying to be a better version of themselves organizations are exactly the same there's if when they're wins what organizations are devoted to self-improvement they outlast over the long term and

they're happier and they're happier organizations that work when to work for as well and there's more room for innovation because they're trying to out-innovate themselves right not other people and they never ever ever believe that they're the best because if you're the best then the game's over right now ACC sits in and you end up defending your position as opposed to advancing your position and no one no one wants to be in a defensive posture so it's it's it's a much more productive way to live and build an organization to try not do yourself and

when you don't you can be okay with it and be like alright let's try again let's figure out what what didn't work there and let's fix it for the next time you know okay yeah and that's something that you can also you know if you have a culture of that and you sort of share that internally then each individual person you know I like that you say that businesses are essentially just like individuals they're constantly trying to be the best version of themselves but what's nice is that there's probably a trickle-down effect when you run

your business that way then people will look at themselves that way within the organization as well so you'll get people you know sort of pursuing higher levels of professionalism or improving you know their own strategies and tactics because they see that at a macro level that's a hundred percent true or you know the culture of the organization is is how the people will operate and interact and the inside the organization as well so an organization built on self-improvement means all the people themselves will be devoted to improving themselves it means communication flows much easier it

means there's less passive aggression there's a lot that there's there's there's more effective confrontation or as we like to say carefrontation I didn't I stole it from someone all the best things are just stolen from other people but then maybe you just you know share it a little more verbalize maybe some more succinctly you know it's really you talk about you know competition and you know internal culture sometimes being not necessarily healthy and today the combination of that internal and external pressure equals stress right and Tony has a quote and he says you know stress

is just what achievers call fear all right but it's true there's a lot of fear out there and people are so stressed one of your rules for success is that in order to deal with that escalating stress and pressure both from inside and outside is to train your mind to be able to deal with it how do you do that what I said so how you train yourself to deal with stress well number one there's there's actually science behind this which is we're social animals and we need each other and so the stronger our relationships

the better capable we are to deal with stress this is why people who are in happy relationships actually live longer than ended in single people believe it or not this is why happy people have lower rates of cancer heart disease and diabetes then then then people who aren't happy and the standard IOH evety yeah exactly and the secret to happiness is relationships it's when we feel that someone has our backs it's when with somebody that we feel loved we get to love it actually it actually is a good thing and there's there's something to be

said for coming home stressed and being able to say to somebody can I tell you about my day and they sit there and they listen and you feel heard and you get it out you know so so relationships are key to doing or key to doing with with with stress and and the other part is if you're in a leadership position you have to take responsibility for the people who work in your company right you know people talk about a work/life balance well work-life balance has nothing to do with how much yoga we do the

imbalance we feel is that I feel safe at home but I don't feel safe at work I don't trust my boss that that's the imbalance and so you can do as much yoga as you want it won't make that imbalance go away it's sort of a it's sort of a temporary fix you feel good in the moment but then you but the imbalance doesn't go away people who have balance find that I have really good relationships in their personal lives and they have really good relationships with their colleagues and and their superiors and subordinates you

know yeah and we and it's not like we it's like a family it becomes a family you know we actually love each other cry together care about each other you fight fight like brothers and sisters but we we may scream and yell but nobody fears losing their job you know and and it just it's a very healthy environment so that's that's what the imbalances and then if it's simply a question of workload and people who love you they'll tell you you're taking the next week off you know so you could we can so I think

when we train ourselves to deal with stress that that's a big part of it but I will tell you one story I didn't think of another story as I was waxing philosophical here which is about that I took I was watching the London Olympics and I remember watching you know they would always interview the athletes either before the finals or after the finals or you know whatever it was and it's amazing to me how many of the the reporters asked the athletes the exact same question right they would all ask were you nervous or are

you nervous and almost all the athletes I think a hundred percent of them actually they all gave the exact same answer no they said no I was excited they all said no I was excited right and if you think about what are the what are the characteristics of nervousness clammy hands your heart starts pounding you start projecting to the future right well what are they what are the characteristics of excitement clammy hands your heart starts pounding you start projecting to the future right these these athletes had learned to reinterpret the symptoms of nervousness as excitement

and so I remember I was on a plane once and there was some really bad turbulence and I got nervous and I actually said out loud to myself this is exciting and I actually relaxed it was kind of incredible uh-huh so the meaning of words yeah you know it's reframing the symptoms and experiences we have into something that basically is the same thing so the next time somebody gets stressed out or nervous at work literally to say out loud to themselves well this is kind of exciting like how is this gonna work out this this

could be very new and different you know this is exciting it this could be a new kind of journey you know so I think reframing is a big part of learning how to deal with stress sure I think you know we also have a system here it's like a like a buddy system um it's not just an accountability partner but it's also somebody who can help you reframe so you know I think what you said about building deep meaningful relationships in the workplace that seems pretty rare these days and I think you even mentioned too

it's a lot of it starts with the fact that people walk into meetings and there's a phone on the table and it doesn't matter if it's if they're paying attention to it or not it's an immediate obstacle and so people don't have the level of you know some people would say small talk but small talk does matter and it allows people to build relationships over time when you have those types of relationships then you have somebody who's gonna call you out you know let's say they see that you look a little nervous they can also

help you reframe that into a feeling of excitement we're simply asking are you okay yeah it's amazing I don't think yeah I don't think people actually do that anymore how are you financially and actually care before asking how you're doing and actually caring is how friends mine's great leaders yep are there some things that leaders can do small things you know other than the removing phones but you know cuz it's so popular these days to call culture building things like we're gonna have a foosball tournament and we're going to happy hour and they're they almost

seem like things that should be creating these relationships but in some ways they almost stand it as an obstacle to them are there some things that business owners can do you think that would help cultivate those relationships or create an environment where people can feel like they can build a family at work so we have to understand the interplay of its intensity and consistency right you can't go to the gym for nine hours and get into shape it doesn't work but if you work out every single day for twenty minutes you will absolutely get into

shape right the problem is I don't know when right so intensity is like going to the dentist twice a year but if that's all you do while your teeth will fall out you have to brush your teeth for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening every single day now the question is is what is brushing your teeth for two minutes actually do the answer is nothing unless you do it every morning and every evening every day and week and it's much harder to measure right but we know a hundred percent it

matters and it works I know a hundred percent if you work at every day you'll get into shape I know a hundred percent if you eat healthy every day you'll be a healthier person I know there's a hundred percent the problems I don't know when and the worst part is it works at different times for different people right so it's the same thing here the foosball tournament the company picnic the holiday party holiday party they're all good and fine but those acts of intensity yeah and what really matters are the acts of consistency the tiny

tiny tiny little things that by themselves actually do nothing but in combination and accumulation actually are more significant in creating a healthy culture things like saying good morning to each other things like putting your phone away when somebody's talking to you things like going out for lunch with each other on a regular basis without cell phones on the table yeah right just let's go out for dinner you know things like asking someone if they need help things like if you're the last person to have a cup of coffee you make the next pot even though

nobody was there to see you things like roaming the hallways if you're a position of leadership and just checking out on people seeing if there's anything they need to do their jobs better things like practicing empathy that when someone's struggling instead of walking into their office and saying your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row we've had this conversation before if you don't pick up your numbers in the fourth quarter I don't know what's gonna happen instead you walk into their office and say your numbers are down for the third quarter in

a row we've had this conversation before are you okay I'm worried about you this is not like you right like these little little things that by themselves do nothing as I said before asking somebody how you how they're doing and actually caring about the answer but if you do all of these things or at least a number of these things and many more what starts to happen is trust builds cooperation builds it's like friendship it's like falling in love you know playing buying flowers and Valentine's Day and remembering their birthday is not what make somebody

fall in love it's the little little little things you do on a daily basis that make somebody realize and discover oh my god I fallen in love but I don't know how long it takes and I don't know what day it's gonna happen and the worst part is once you are in shape once you are healthy once you are in love you actually have to keep doing all those little things every day you can't stop you can't get into shape and then stop working out you have to get it to shape and then keep working

out so it's the same thing it's the it's the consistency you need it to get to the point where the healthy culture and you need it to stay healthy there's all of these small things I think philosophically we understand that and a lot of business owners use that same approach when it comes to business so you know if you asked one of you know Tony Robbins business clients he said what do you think is more impactful running a giant million dollar ad campaign or making these ten changes you know increasing operational efficiency in your manufacturing

center by staying open fifteen to twenty minutes later balint you know right there's all these small little he calls them two millimeter adjustments you know hiring one more salesperson in an emerging region for your video nationwide business I know these are the things that make the long term impact because like you said just like social interactions they compile over time and it's almost like you know making a snowman right and you're rolling the ball and it gets bigger a bigger a bigger at the end you have this amazing result but it takes time to get

there I'll tell you a funny story so I spoke at a conference of all the people who run Lowell tee programs right so they run all the points in loyalty programs for hotels and airlines and all that kind of stuff right yeah yes yeah and so I I told a story where I I shared a really as a story of a major airline that really really did a bad job like really bad and I stood on the stage and told this horrible story about this airline and everybody listening right now is probably going through a

laundry list of all airline gasps speaking please in the past year okay so so so I what I didn't know is the head of the loyalty program for that airline was actually in the audience right so a few weeks go by and an email arrives saying hey Simon I heard you at this conference I actually really appreciated all your words and everything you said and if you if you would we would like to gift you whatever the highest status that you know statuses on their airline and I said that's very kind of them and so

I called the I called this person back and to thank them personally and I said I said to them listen I'm really grateful that you're giving me the status you know but but I know why you're giving it to me you either want me to feel nice about you so I'll start telling nice stories about you or you want me to shut up telling the bad stories I said here's what I don't understand right you are trying to solve the problem of somebody like me going out there telling stories as bad stories about your airline

right by taking care of me and showering me with gifts I don't even fly your airline right I said here's a better way of doing it why don't you do the hard work of taking care of your customers and then I won't have any stories to tell I or even if what I suffered was an anomaly and I dill I still tell my story my story on the stage everybody will just say well you probably just had one bad experience they're not like that right like if I tell a bad story about Southwest Airlines nobody's

gonna be like yeah everything to be like well you probably just had a bad experience right there consuming good yeah if you just consistently why don't you invest in little little little things about taking care of your customers and that's how you can cut me off at the knees right not not by showering me with gifts so it's it's exactly what we're talking about here which is unfortunately it takes longer it's the consistency we don't know exactly when it's gonna work but it's much more effective and it lasts what the impact lasts much longer so

I'm all about I'm all about focusing on doing the right thing lots of times rather than trying to to sort of cheat the system and just do it once or twice with big things sure yeah looking at sustainability as opposed to the quick fix you know hacking mentality yeah and the intensity is fine like the big stuff matters but not not not when it's the only thing right yeah well Simon we've gone through your ten rules of success and it's obvious you have a lot more so I would love to maybe point your point this

audience toward where they can learn more about your past work and also you know you had mentioned a few upcoming projects so maybe just a little reminder of those you know I'm one in all the usual places LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter website you know and all the usual places we have a great website start with Wacom and has a whole bunch of resources and it's got a great media library so if you want to go see so I think we have a compilation of Simon's greatest hits and a couple books coming out a book called

find your why comes out in September which I'm really excited about it sort of picks up or start with why I left off you know I made the case for this thing the why yeah now this book brings it to life great yeah and you know for all the business owners listening out there these are the types of things too that make great gifts for your employees I mean I think it's one of those things that if employees feel supported in understanding the purpose and how it is in alignment with the organization that does build

a long-lasting relationship so I know there was there's actually somebody right here who who was gifted start with Y and he was like wow this is it shows it shows a lot of thoughtfulness and respect for that person sort of individual aspirations so just something to throw out there for you guys thank you yeah I actually wrote a book to be given as a gift there's a book I wrote called together is better oh right it's very visual right yeah and the first page says to and from is actually I actually wrote it to be

given as a gift Wow to be given as a gift to people who you want to say thank you to inspiring you or people you want to inspire so yeah I'm all about I'm all about the acts of gratitude yeah great great well Simon thank you so much for your time this has been extremely insightful and enjoyable so oh thanks so much feeling's mutual thank you so much [Music] the Tony Robbins podcast is directed and hosted by Tony Robbins and Mary Burke hey auntie org is our editorial director an occasional host the podcast is produced

by Carrie song and Teller Culbertson Jamie Carvajal and Adriel dilatory are a digital editors special thanks to Diane Adcock for her creative review copy right Robin's research international [Music]