Want To Be A Better Human? You Need THESE Skills | Simon Sinek on Finding Mastery

there's an entire section in the Bookshop called self-help but there's no section in the Bookshop called help others we have hard skills the skills you need to do your job and human skills the skills you need to be a better human being you know and I want more human skills in the world what we're talking about is not a recipe for Success it's a recipe for sustain success and it's also a recipe for Joy while you're succeeding and the ability to learn your lessons when it doesn't go well that's what we're talking about Simon I

am so stoked to have this conversation with you you've taken complicated ideas made them very simple to understand and provided a massive gift to Millions so thank you for coming in thank you thanks for having me we are recording this the day after the Super Bowl and I was nine Seasons with the Seattle Seahawks and we actually had somebody come in to talk about the infinite game I think he got nearly run out of the business or run out of the room like it didn't it didn't hang right it didn't work right and so I

think you'll have an idea of probably why because you've been doing obviously a bunch of work around it but if you were to if you were in front of the 49ers today yeah the day after they lost in the Super Bowl yeah how would you have a conversation about the infinite game good coaches and good owners know have a sense of what the infinite game is Right clearly the game is about winning and losing and you should play to win of course but they all know what infinite game is is because they talk about team

building you know and they talk about off the field and so I mean that stuff is all infinite game you talk about the quality of human being you talk about camaraderie and and and teamwork that's all infinite game stuff and it all comes to bear on the day so I think they have a sense of it they just use different language for it so inside of a sport franchise you can have part of it part of it be the infinite game and part of it be the finite game finite game should we the terms yeah

let oper start there so let's define the terms in the mid 1980s a philosopher and theologian by the name of Dr James cars defined these two types of Gams finite games and infinite games a finite game is defined as known players fixed rules and an agreed upon objective football if there's a winner necessarily there has to be a loser or losers but more important there's always a beginning a middle and an end infinite games are defined as known and unknown players which means you don't necessarily know who all the other players are the rules are

changeable which means every player can play however they want new players can join at any time and the objective is to stay in the game as long as possible to perpetuate the game obviously we are players in infinite games every day of Our Lives whether we know it or not no one's ever going to be declared the winner of career Rockefeller John Rockefeller probably thought he he probably I mean I think there's a lot of people who think they did yeah right yeah you know no one's ever declared the winner of Education or the winner

of being healthy right it doesn't exist and there's definitely no such thing as winning business for example but what I find fascinating is if you listen to the language of so many leaders it becomes abundantly clear that they not actually know the game they're playing in they talk about being number one being the best or beating their competition based on what based on what agreed upon metrics objectives and time frames and this is a problem because when we play with a finite mindset in an infinite game when we play to win in a game that

has no Finish Line there are very predictable and consistent outcomes the big ones are the decline of trust the decline of cooperation the decline of innovation so like when Circuit City went bankrupt Best Buy didn't win anything right the game continues with or without the player and new players will fill the space in fact Circuit City was replaced by Amazon so it changed the whole game for best bu so the rules areay the it's existential right yeah so a sports franchise of course they want to win of of course and they understand that winning championships

brings in money and you know helps keep the the franchise alive but there's more to the game than simply each game um and it's very dangerous to think of the infinite game as simply winning a series of finite games that's what Jack Welch used to believe you know which is just win and then just win again and then just win that's just moving goalposts right and that's incredibly unsatisfying you know because you that's like saying if I make a million dollars I'll be happy okay that didn't happen if I make $2 million I'll be happy

okay if I make 3 million that's what that is that's a series of finite games if you just hit the numbers you'll get a bonus okay just hit the numbers again and for some reason if you keep doing it whether you hit the numbers or not life stops being fulfilling the thrill of the first two or three times goes away you get good at it it's not exciting anymore and fulfillment starts to go down and so the infinite game as it applies to a sports franchise is is the joy of coming to work not just

winning the game sure you get a spike each time you win but that's there's a difference between happiness and joy right happiness is fleeting watch a movie go on a date win a game you know have a good meal happy happy happy pleasure pleasure pleasure pleasure pleasure and it's amazing and then it goes away it go it's amazing and it goes away and drug addicts that's all they can do is is the next hit the next hit the next hit or people who become addicted to money or people who become addicted to Performance the next

hit the next hit the next hit of performance is is is a seeking of happiness but there's a lack of Joy The Joy comes from the joy of the playing the joy comes from the relationships that I've built along the way the joy comes from knowing that the work that I have done is actually of greater value than simply the money I make it's contributing to something bigger than myself like all of this has has purpose so the infinite game is hard for for a lot of high performers to get and it's very often the

thing that they're missing when they get very successful during my crosswalk from sport best practices and insights from the psych ology of sport into business often times the astute leader will say yeah you know the sport the sport analogy doesn't quite work I say yeah correct correct and I always say that the sport that kind of holds up is the Ultram marathoner back to back to back to back right so there's the endurance part of it they are not interested in often times the winning of it certainly there are mhm triathletes and Ultras that they

want to win but for the most part that Community is like did you try did you go to your edges of course people want to win but it is such a marathon in and of itself that there is no beginning and end is the the crosswalk I try to make there infinite and finite approach is more as more astute to what we're trying to do however the in business they need to win they need to produce they need to perform to stay in the game so how do you square those two that you're playing a

finite game in an infinite game is that how you said it so when you play with a finite mindset mindset in an infinite game right so there are always finite games within an infinite game okay right the two they're they're not mutually exclusive the infinite game contains the finite games so the analogy that I like to use is being healthy right I want to be healthy well nobody wins Health right and there's many many things you have to do to be healthy you have to eat right you have to get enough sleep you have to

exercise you have to have personal relationships you you have to have friends and love in your life you know all these things matter there's probably 30 other things we could list but those are the big four and you'll never be a master at all of them simultaneously they sort of go up and down and it's a striving right it's it's infinite but you can still have finite goals within that I want to lose x amount of weight by X date and you can work to that goal and you know perfectly well you know better than

I do that metrics matter like human beings need metrics we're biologically designed to to to to achieve things so that we will keep achieving things find food build shelter right right that's right like we love we love dopamine when healthy it's very valuable yeah that's right can you imagine running a marathon without mile markers it would actually be unnerving so there's nothing wrong with actually creates a ton of anxiety for people when you say just keep running and you don't know how long or for you right they what we actually do in those situation is

we the healthy people hedge their bet just a little bit run a little bit slower than their possible so you never quite really you're if you don't know thec you're try to save your energy and so if you want to pick an arbitrary number on an arbitrary date I want to lose x amount of weight by X date great you work towards it you wear yourself every day some days you you feel good some days you feel bad ites you know fits and starts and you achieve your goal you hit your weight goal by the

right date you celebrate huge dopamine hit but you have to keep exercising for the rest of your life it's not over like it's just an event contained within something much larger what I find more interesting is what happens if you miss your goal and the answer is nothing nothing happens right well on that goal but if you miss your two quarter two quarters in a row yeah I call it the invisible handshake in sport and business is that in sport is usually more concrete yeah which is the invisible handshake it's it's more visible I should

say not for long NFL so if you don't perform well long enough um you're asked not to come back club and maybe somebody else will pick you up right so free agency in business it's a little more subtle you know because you can hide a little bit I know my our business friends are going what do you mean you can hide yeah in a multinational you can find ways you know but if you don't perform at some Metric you're asked not to be included in this community the bad companies are that doggy dog you know

where it's only the numbers you P your own people against each other and you end up building a culture where people will stab each other in the back back steal each other's credit because that's the environment you've created and you can have short-term success that way this is not what we're talking about it's not a recipe for Success it's a recipe for sustained success and it's also a recipe for Joy while you're succeeding and the ability to learn your lessons when it doesn't go well that's what we're talking about the the doggy dog world that

that you're painting um it will it can it can achieve but it won't last and it's at some point it will break and it will be probably dramatic or there'll be some Scandal almost every Scandal we see in business it's not an anomaly it's usually years in the making if you just peel it back and look at the culture when I talk about nothing happens the reality is if you have an infinite mindset you can still have goals but I think what happens is we don't consider how those goals are achieved right so for example

if you have a sales or organization that's very finite minded hit the numbers hit the numbers you can have a promotion have a sale near the end of the year and you can Spike the numbers and you'll hit it right but is it a healthy organization with high functioning team with a of cooperation and Innovation you know people come and go they're getting stabbed in the back they're quitting they're getting fired every time you have a mass layoffs like morale is destroyed you got to takes way longer to rebuild that you know versus an organization

that still has the goals but they're also measuring how they achieve their goals they're measuring the quality of leadership they're checking are people getting fired and and and are they quitting at high levels which is disruptive and also very expensive they miss the goal but it's only because they pick the wrong date you can if you look at the trend data it's not a it's not a a roller coaster like the other one but this beautiful and you like oh you're going to hit it in 14 months as opposed to 12 I can see that

not to mention the fact that oh my God this is a high functioning team and that Trend will continue a lot longer over time than the other example and that's one of the problems most organizations ignore my work no matter of the fact that it's usually grounded in biology and anthropology and human behavior and all that stuff in other words most of my work is not my opinion that's just how people work right that's just like finite and infinite games is just that's just how the world functions right it's not my opinion it's a truth

um but the reason most companies don't use my work is because I can't predict when it'll work so for example if you say I want to get into shape I go great I need you to work out every single day for 20 minutes 100% you will get into shape when I have no clue and neither does any doctor and for some people it'll go a bit quicker and for some people it'll go a bit slower but if you trust in the process 100% it's going to work like how long does it take to teach your

kid how to ride a bicycle nobody knows now every one of us can teach our kids how to ride bicycles it's a process and there's some scrape knees and there's some tears and there's some anger but if you stick with it 100% of people will learn how to rise ride a bicycle when I don't know and that's why most organizations don't use my work is because they want it to work on the arbitrary date that they picked and they need the arbitrary number to be hit on that arbitrary date and so what ends up happening

is you abandon you abandon process for shortcuts and I mean we see people do it in in health all the time like like I'd like to lose like 5 to eight pounds not a lot but I need to lose 5 to eight pounds a friend of mine literally said to me take o zic I was like for5 she's like yeah take OIC I'm like 5 pounds like that like whether OIC has side effects or not certainly wasn't the design certainly not that like if I I'm 30 or 40 pounds overweight yes but but that's the

point which is the the the the knee-jerk to take the shortcut for something that's not difficult just requires a little effort and that's a lot of work when I say work I mean like going to work like our jobs like none of it's that complic at it just requires a little discipline and because of the incentive structures and and the time frames we abandon those disciplines and I think it's the same for how a lot of people live their lives unfortunately including myself by the way I abandon discipline all the time for a shortcut but

uh but you know just a you know to be aware of it I think at least Spade of spade it's a big part of yeah most people know if we put an apple and an apple pie on a table which one is healthy yeah yeah yeah it's the Apple but I but I always say but apple pie it's fruit so I'm going to eat the apple pie quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation finding Mastery is brought to you by facet when we think about what it takes to thrive and

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to learn more just head to facet.gov irand this is not an offer to sell Securities or investment Financial legal or tax advice past performance is not a guarantee of future performance terms and conditions apply let's jump right back into the conversation it does require great commitment towards something to be disciplined over time yeah and this is where your other work on understanding purpose and living purpose aligned is really important but let's stay here for just a moment you say people that or companies that don't use my work most meaning that that there are some yeah

that do sure and I don't know if you can point to them or not but those companies that do what is the promise that you're pointing towards like what is the you you you did mention them there's uh more creativity yeah um SL Innovation yeah there's more teaming fill in the blanks is it a higher performing organization meaning is the bet that we are going to work well together we're going to be better teams and in return we're probably going to see some profits that are going to be and performance that are going to be

remarkable yeah you are saying that yeah yeah and so if you're patient and you don't know when and but it's not like you have to wait 10 years you know like you know these things sometimes go quicker than you expect but they're it's not like I'm asking you to like follow a process and then you're going to have to wait eight times longer it's it's just not predictable in time is the is the issue if you and more important it's it's not even when you achieve it's that you will continue to achieve for longer that's

the more important thing it's an interesting bet because that is um a shortened Runway is a problem for all businesses including certainly entrepreneurship and so you're saying yeah if you get some of these base pillars in place you're playing the infinite infinite game you're more likely to have a longer Runway and that's not because money is not going to run out that's because people are going to work better together judge the quality of a crew by how a ship performs in Rough Waters not calm Waters 100% you know and so you know I think a

lot of quote unquote High performing companies think they're amazing and think they have the best people on the planet while they're high performing you know throw a throw a pandemic at them throw a scandal at them throw um uncontrollable factors like you know supply chain or a fire somewhere or a volcano in Iceland that screws up all the air freight show a new technology you know like the internet that renders your business model obsolete now let's talk about how good that team is and magical teams are the ones that hunker down and go all right

how we going to get through this one A friend of mine who is a general in the Marine Corps says you know no plan ever survives contact with the Enemy and I it's the same in business like you can have all the grand plans you want and career plans you want whether for your you know business plans for your company or personal career nothing survives reality you know um we're not in control to have guiding principles that are bigger than the path I'll give you an analogy right so my whole career when I when I

worked in for corporations my reviews were always the same um Simon you have no Focus right um and my whole life my teachers my parents everybody like if only you would focus right and there's a great irony is because I'm actually more focused than most people I'm just focused at a distance that's way Far Beyond the Horizon which means that for me the path is flexible I'm agnostic as the path that I take to get to a very fixed point in the far off distance a world in which the vast majority of people wake up

every single morning inspired feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do most people are very very focused on the path that they've chosen right so the analogy would be um you leave your like you you come out of the house in the morning and you see your neighbor packing up their car and you'll be like hey where you going they look at you go vacation you're like oh cool where are you going and they said vacation you're like no no I get that but where are you going

they're like I told you vacation I'm like well then you're like fine well how you going to get there well I'm going to take 95 and I've got a goal I'm going to drive 150 miles a day right and that's how most of us live our lives which is we want to be successful vacation right make it you know Advance it's all these amorphous goals like just saying vacation they're not they're not a destination it's just something and then we plan our routs I'm going to make this amount of money I'm going to do this

and like I'm going to drive 150 miles and we're all really pride ourselves and we hit our goal or I drove 200 miles a day I'm ahead of goal how do you know even what road you're driving or you don't even know where you're going and what if new opportunity shows up you don't know which road to take now I'm the opposite you know I'm I'm in Los Angeles I'm trying to get to californ and I'm trying to get to New York right let's just pretend it's an infinite you know goal it's not finite it's

way off some Vision in the future so I know I got to go du East right but what if the freeway is blocked well I'll take a side road that goes in the wrong direction and everybody thinks I've lost my focus because I'm going in the wrong direction but I know that I would rather take a slow cutus route that gets me back to where I'm going rather than sitting in traffic or if somebody says I got a jet you want to come with me on the jet I'm like which way is the jet going

where most people are going like jets go fast yes and so they're saying yes to things they shouldn't be saying yes to and no to things because they're slow or seem to go Sidetrack and so yes sometimes highly focused people are focused on the path with no sense of destination and I would rather people have a very clear sense of destination and you'll figure out a path that's why there's Innovation well said well done the whole thing hangs together nicely and and so I was you thought about this I it you surprise me you surprise

me with that people say vacation and I was like oh that's the enlightened one the one that say says I'm going where are you going I don't know I'm just going I I was falling in love with that amorphous no end point like I am going to explore life yes and I thought that's what you were going with and he said no no there's nothing Buddhist about it no was certainly not okay the H3 Horizon 3 type of thinking which is what you're talking about and then you're hooking around that a destination so usually Horizon

3 is certainly it's way out there and to me my when I think h 1 H2 and H3 that H3 tends to shift when I get to H2 and so it doesn't shift for you though you're like it's New York it's so so this is what idealism is right this is what Vision should be most people when they talk about Vision I think they they what they mean is a big hairy audacious goal yeah you know hard distant achievable you know and true Vision like all men are created equal well I mean we're still figuring

that one out 250 years later right like true vision is an ideal state of the world that doesn't yet exist and we call it Vision because I can see it in my mind's eye I can paint a picture it's a shining sit in a hill that's right you know and and and we'll never get there but we'll die trying which is the point this is one of the foundational practices that I use in sports psychology is to just spend a little bit of time let's just get clear kind of push our seats back if we

need to from from the desk what is the vision that you hold for yourself and then often times I need to Niche that down don't do postc career yet we'll get to that soon but what's the vision you hold for yourself during this phase and it it invites imagination so it's using one's imagination to see a compelling later like so my vision for myself is is hooked around my purpose but they are they're quite different so my vision is a world where people flourish and I think that something that you just said in there for

your vision is actually quite close to it I would not why we you invited me and I said yes there's something because because we we're there's a there's cooperation here yeah right and so when I when I first introd your work and my work both contribute there is a to the greater good to the same vision or similar Vision say your vision again uh I imagine a world so there's that I use imagination right because that's where that's where it exists that's how it happens right I imagine a world in which the vast majority I

say vast majority because everyone is unrealistic everyone's G to be no that's not true right that's cool in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do now it doesn't tell you what I do doesn't tell you how I'm going to get there I've made certain bets like I believe leadership matters because I think um if we bet on and build and support and celebrate the leaders who are good leaders then we're more likely to build that

world I've bet on something called human skills like we have hard skills the skills you need to do your job and human skills the skills you need to be a better human being you know and I want more human skills in the world I like to say that there's an entire section in the Bookshop called self-help but there's no section in the Bookshop called help others this is my this is my rub with the self-help industry like 1980 it was all about me yeah and now it's like it's for what reason I know I mean

the only thing the self-help industry helped is itself the the I mean it started un like said like mid to late 1970s and if you look at the growth curve of the self-help industry it's huge and if it was working it should be in Decline that's a good take that's a really good take yeah that's right it it should put itself out of business yeah I mean the only argue you can make is that it would be generational in which case it should be relatively flat yeah that's really good right because you got to keep

training somebody yeah oh my goodness when we were doing the publishing for the book they're like you know this is this is going to land in self-help I was like oh God I can't believe I'm doing this but is that where your stuff sits as well no my my I write leadership no I write philosophy books cleverly disguised as business books they really are they're in the business they're in the business section is that your it it makes its way into the selfhelp world which is fine but cousins at some point what's that they're cousins

leadership and self-help the decisions I made were strategic right because if I put a book in self-help no one in business will read it but if I put a put a business a book in business or leadership then people in business and Leadership will read it and people in self-help will read it with your vision as clear as it is and you laid the beted on leadership MH and you want to skill up or add to the human skills do you have a handful of human skills that you would like to see modern leaders have

more command of oh it's such a good question you know I think there's some real Basics the big one is listening we are really bad at listening you know ask any spouse how's your partner are they good listeners and I would say the majority would say room for improvement you know we're we're bad at listening at work um so I think listening is number one I think how to have effective confrontations you you're going to have disagreements on a regular basis that's okay and a lot of people are confrontation avoidant and it's not because they

don't like confrontations because they don't know how to do it confrontation doesn't have to be confrontational it doesn't have to be aggressive um it can be quite inviting actually but something has bent me out of shape and I I want to tell you about it that's it's a skill how to have difficult conversations there's a good one I saw this after George Floyd where the number of leaders who the way they reacted to George Floyd was they did nothing not because they're bad people it's because they didn't have the skill of difficult conversations and so

they were so afraid of saying the wrong thing or in igniting a situation or triggering someone that they just opted for nothing and it's a shame because those conversations needed to happen but they didn't have the skills or giving and receiving feedback there's another one right most of us like to give feedback the way we like to get feedback the way I like to get feedback just tell me please no don't give me a confront you know a feedback sandwich please because I know you're bullshitting me for the nice thing you're being serious about the

shitty thing and you're bullshitting me about the nice thing just tell me right right so so the way I give feedback is the way I like to get it one of the turns out not everybody likes to get feedback that way so you got to learn how to adjust we we the feedback thing on coaching and so we'll say like we'll do this with most teams I work with whether business or sport is we'll have a bit of a round table like how do you want to be coached yeah and then so people like oh

what do you mean well we all need to be coached it's so that's a basic assumption how do you want to be coached uh and there's some kind of gates public or private they go uh public yeah I don't that's fine I mean private might take too long oh so you want it now real time or do you want it after the meeting or do you want it you know within 24 hours so good yeah so we just walk them through a couple Gates good and then if they can tell their teammates that and then

now there's that like a deeper partnering on how you're going to take care of each other towards the shared purpose and and and being inquisitive like that by the way goes in all you relationships and this is this is what I love about teaching these skills at work which is if we teach these skills at work what you get are way better teams and by the way better there's a difference between a team and people who work together there's difference between a team and people who play on the same you know organization a group and

a team like they're not the same thing right yeah um and by the way sorry to interrupt teams are rare I I agree with you teams are rare for high performing teams are even more R for all the reasons we're talking about that's right the fascinating thing is high performing teams are not obsessed with winning until they're in the game right all the great coaches you know uh wooden Coach K the weird thing is none of them were obsessed with winning and yet they became the winning most coaches actually John Wooden said I I wish

all of my friends I'm going to get this somewhat close I wish all of my friends to have one championship and all of my rivals to know what it feels like to have back toback in other words like it's heavy like it's really hard to manage and maintain someone's going to correct me on the exact quote there but that idea like wish you get one win yeah I want everyone to get a win you know but like back toback is really hard he was a relationship coach exactly and for and if you ask them they

want their they want their their people to thrive and they want their people to create to build a team rather than just a series of high performing players I mean we know that dream teams aren't so dreamy we know that and the amazing thing is it's there's just for comp companies underinvestment right it's it's not a it's not a bet it's an investment right bets I put money down they spin the wheel I win or I lose right that's the financial year right or the quarter right take bets but investment is like well I'm going

to put money in this equity and I'm going to hold on for 20 years and we're going to see how it's going to go so I if I invest in my people you'll start to see growth in that investment but for some it's quicker and some it's slower and some will Thrive very quickly and some it might take a couple years but the point is you're creating magical teams of people who feel feel because they're human that somebody cares about them and cares about their personal growth and they reward you with effort and love and

loyalty and patience and when things go wrong they stick with you because that's how Human Relationships work it's the same in our personal relationships if you make someone feel safe in your personal relationships and then you screw it up badly they will they will work with you to get through this grub M matter of fact infidelity according to research is not the reason marriages end right the big things are not the reason relationships end it's the accumulation of a Thousand Cuts yeah that's right you know and I'm not advocating for what I just said like

no no but the point is is that a healthy relationship can some really and work through extreme stress whereas what appear to be healthy relationships end up breaking because of a of a Thousand Cuts that you didn't the tinsel strength wasn't there yeah you had a line in your book about rewarding the selfish High earner like that that's what management or coaches sometimes do is that we we throw money at them or we move them up an org chart or we give them a captain's whatever because they're the high earner High scorer but they're actually

quite selfish individuals which when you have one of those on the team it's an interesting thing that can take place which is you'll keep him in the circle because he's earning for you or she is but the team will have to bond around that selfish whatever person is and then so that person never really feels like they're part of a team right because so now they're bit ostracized which inflames the condition right and the other let's call it n or 19 whatever the size of the group is could be 1900 it's no it's more it's

more intimate I'm thinking sport right now is that they're they want that person on the team as long as they keep scoring but as soon as it gets wonky they don't we don't want them I've never met a coach yet that hasn't said to the selfish High earner once they let that person go say why didn't I do that sooner M why why are and the team us says what took you so long yeah why are you so scared why was I so scared so when you think of great teams what are some of the

ways that you would go about helping a team be great so first and foremost if somebody has a performance issue um and likewise if they have a a personality issue so sometimes you have a high performer of low trust right that is as that is more dangerous than a high trust underperformer it was my number one gate for SEL section at the at the pro teams what that I would help with selection and it is the way that Navy Seals choose who advances in their organization too long but the the thing is well this is

what we're talking about investment right which is which I love that framing investment versus bet I it has a totally different contour and both have value but just do with eyes wide open bets bets are for short term and there's nothing wrong with a bet but you can't you can't build a thriving long-term organization on just just yeah you know unless you're cheating which is organizations do too they all you know they cook the numbers to some degree you know wait how do you do that well anybody can have any metric they want oh any

can be anybody can be number one it's like my favorite thing is like like Airlines like if go I I love Airline advertising it's my favorite thing in the world because it's like you know ranked number one it says on the ad and if you look at the fine print it's like based on a 5-year period of you know Global Airlines of about equal size like he like you know it's like the fine print is magical or or or or or financial advertising you know past performance is no guarantee of of of of f f

ears future earnings and they like number one this and you always go to look at the fine they chose the conditions it's like everybody gets to pick their own metrics every company you I I love talking to CEOs I mean this is the finite mindset which is they say but Simon you you don't understand we we actually are number one and my answer is for now for now yes for now now like you're the best for now yeah like the Super Bowl was yesterday Kansas City is the best for now for now yeah and there

was another metric hanging right off of that which was the Cowboys are are valued at 9 billion which is the highest valuation and I think Kansas City Chiefs are at 7 billion so they're they're they're almost there but when you look at total value you're suggesting that that is I'm suggesting that that is one way you could measure success if you wanted to and you're saying for now yeah I mean the the and to go back to your original question which is so how do you lead the people and so for me when someone's a

high performer of low trust or a high trust person of uh low performance I've got an issue in both and first you coach you either coach the personality issue I mean I don't know who they role they may they may be an that is an option but they may have had bad role models or they left an organization that only incentivized performance above all else and that's what they got good at or I don't I just don't know their story and so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that that they're teachable

that they're coachable the underperformer same thing I don't know maybe there there's a skill Gap maybe I've got them in the wrong job maybe they're nervous there's a confidence issue but all of that is I can coach to both of those and for me the time to say I don't think this is going to work and I want you to find happiness somewhere else is if someone proves themselves to be uncoachable now of course there's always exceptions like you've got an amazing skill set and for a job I don't have you know or it's just

you know sometimes it's time to to try something new because you're not happy and I can't help you you know but for the most part those tend to be the outliers everybody's coachable and the time for for me the time to ask somebody to leave the organization is if they provve themselves to be uncoachable we would say in sport we'd say we coach them until they can't or they won't yeah that's a that's a better way of putting it that was much that was much more succinct though I'm going to start saying it that way

yeah it's much better but well the point is the same though is that there's some barrier that somebody gets through and they'll tell you when they don't want to be coached anymore or they just can't do the thing that is required for them to do but this is why good leadership matters because when you're creating an organization that has psychological safety built in what you're doing is you're creating conditions in which people can raise their hand and say I made a mistake I don't know what I'm doing I'm struggling um I've got issues at home

my kids FL out of school and I it's affecting my work um like you you know you can bring that to work and and tell somebody whether it's a colleague or a or a leader and what you'll be met with is support right but if you create an organization that doesn't have psychological safety where it is performance at all costs no one is going to reveal any of those things because for fear that that makes them firable or it damages their promotability or they have personal issues like that that makes me sound weak you know

you this ter ter vulnerability is becoming popular in business now but the word scares a lot of people I don't want to be vulnerable it doesn't mean weak right it means that I'm revealing shortcomings or uh mistakes or errors but I can do that with confidence and I think this is the thing that people Miss which is it I'll just give you an example right you can deliver any of these things with confidence versus lack of confidence so for example I need you to be vulnerable um I don't I don't I don't know how to

read it p&l um so I don't know if I can I need I'm going to need help right this person's not going to last very long that is not confidence inspiring in anybody we're working with right you can have that same shortcoming in in in skill right which is hey I know you're G to find this hilarious but I never learned how to read a p&l if somebody could please just show me how to read a p&l I will learn it and we got no problems but for now we're not going anywhere until somebody can

tell me how to read this damn document right in one case you're horribly insecure about the lack of skill and the other one you just own it and so being vulnerable doesn't mean being insecure being vulnerable just means I'm going to tell you something I don't know this is where I'm I keep going back to athletes and because that's your thing well yes and no but it's a base of where I draw much of my insight from so I was in Pro Sport for about 20 years and then I popped my head into big business

11 years ago and I was like how are they doing it yeah how are they doing doing it how are they grinding the way that they're grinding I mean there's no recovery in place M they don't the passion is not clear you don't have seasons yep there's no Seasons uh they're exhausted they're on double shifts every day two days every day like I couldn't believe it and so it was it felt like there was these lobs left and right for me to go get it was really fun one of the things that athletes do extraordinarily

well is that they are able to manage the Gap and that Gap is between their current state of skill and the desired state state of skill and everybody knows what that Gap is and they got people that partner with them to be explicit and then develop a plan so for this scenario you just created everybody would know there's no secret yeah so the vulnerability is actually the opportunity where where we can see you suck at that yeah pretending you don't that's right it's silly yeah right please stop that and by the way we're actually going

to take you out of reading spreadsheets and put you over here because you're a great Storyteller and so we're going to find a way to figure this out together we don't put athletes in compromised positions look lying hiding and faking unfortunately is how a lot of people are forced to come to work ly hiding and faking yeah lying hiding and faking is the way a lot of people are forced to come to work because the reward and incentive structure or Worse the punishment structure if you reveal any of these things you you risk losing your

job or you risk getting unpromoted or somebody else promoting ahead of you because you know they're faking it better than you are so you know the the Great teams and you know this which is the one of the good things about sports is we all know there's something wrong because you can't hit the ball right like I can I can see it right where you know business we can lie hide and fake a lot easier than we can in sports so Sports you can't get away with it so what we do is we don't fire

them we help them work on that thing and first we help them get their confidence back right like a slump is a terrible thing it's mainly psychological because they've got the skills correct so so every every sports team knows there a psychological component and sometimes there's a skills component that's right and yet in business we just scream and yell at people or fire them because they're underperformers or not promote them but we don't recognize there's a psychological component and sometimes there's a skill component usually it's the former so good leaders good leaders know that they

do know that good leaders know that I I've been saying that modern leadership will be marked by the ability to apply basic psychology and so that's what I'm and the key word there is basic basic this is not Advanced anything no right this is not Psychotherapy no this is this is psych 101 that's exactly right basic functions of a human being that's right if somebody feels seen her and understood they will freaking love you forever okay do it again seen if somebody feels seen heard and understood okay I got to use that one now they

will love you forever that's really you're so right well that's it yeah I exist well you know that I'll get the numbers wrong but the there's data that shows that when somebody's ignored at work right there's something like 80% disengagement I don't remember the number but it's exorbitant if somebody gets yelled at once right it's something like 40% disengagement whatever it is and if somebody's given one compliment for one skill that they've got it's something like 7% disengagement in other words getting yelled at is actually better than being ignored because at least you know I

exist and that's I mean that's hilarious it's terrible you know that's how bad it is terrible yeah if you were to design a a bit of a tring protocol or a basic capabilities requirement for leaders what would be the three to five things you said listening we we talked about them I think there's I think listening is the big one um and listening is a is a compound skill right because it requires patience it requires empathy like you can't just be a good listener without being curious and like like it's a it's a compound skill

it's more difficult than it sounds I'm kind of cheating cuz I said one but it's really like SI you know and like I said before I think uh difficult conversations is a huge one effective confrontation is a huge one and for me had to given receive feedback is the other one I had a colleague who um couldn't take feedback well like I would I would give her feedback and it it sometimes it would deteriorate into absolute shouting match right I mean and you you something really has to escalate for that to happen right and what

I was doing was giving feedback the way way I like to get it right turns out it wasn't working out very well and so I did what you suggest when with your coaching which is I interrupted literally midf fight and I was like this is clearly not working can you just tell me how you want to be get feedback like I'll do it anyway you want right and what she told me was she goes I need you to prepare me right just you can either say can I give you some difficult feedback now and it

either say yes or no or I need you to schedule it in my calendar like we're gonna have a feedback SE feedback session on Thursday at 3 o' are you available right and as long as I did that it was astonishing how much she could take she could take more blunt and hard to hear feedback than almost anybody on the team as long as I prepared her and scheduled it but that's because I asked yeah and where's where is and remember I'm in the position of authority so and there's lots of us who are in

that leadership position which means I've got somebody who's not taking feedback because I'm not giving it the way that they can hear it but I've now created a narrative in my head of they can't take feedback and they're a problem child and it goes down they're an underperformer the the corruption of the of the power dynamic because you get to pick the narrative and they're subjected to your narrative right right they have to mold around your there's you have to mold around your incompetence and I think that happens frightfully too often yeah and the one

thing that's incredibly dangerous in an organization is Gossip right and I know a company that gossip is a fireable offense which I love right we know that employees sometimes get together after work and vent about their boss and and and healthy venting I think is very important you should be able to vent and complain about work I think that's but creating narratives about somebody like the number of people that tell me they have a toxic I'm like the real examples of real toxicity are actually much lower than we think you know I'll give you a

perfect example it's because it's all of narrative right so I went for a walk with a friend of mine who was struggling at work and this is how the conversation began um my boss is a horrible person she's a horrible person and she goes on to tell me you know like the whole story of what's going on at work and I interrupted her I go wait wait wait wait she's a horrible person she's a horrible person I'm like so does she abuse her children and kick her dog no okay so we don't know that she's

a horrible person we know that she's a horrible leader okay that's all we know yeah that's narrative yeah that's really good but we do it in leadership as well right a group of leaders get together for their leadership meeting or whatever right and somebody's name comes up who's on the team and somebody says oh he's so lazy my God that guy is such an idiot right oh God freaking Debbie down there right and now that's the narrative among all leaders leadership and so every time that person's name comes up somebody still go I know why

he's not hit hacking it lazy right now all leadership is going to treat that person as lazy as stupid as disengaged as not caring and and so it's very important and we're all guilty of it no one we've all done it there's there's a gine healthy venting and forming narratives about people and or their motivations and the reality is we don't know and so it's very important if you find yourself in a group of people that somebody starts creating a negative narrative about someone um somebody has to interrupt it go that may be the case

or they're struggling we're not leading them well we're not coaching them properly we haven't given them any feedback like I know an organization that is so passive aggressive everybody's so nice everybody's so nice and if you're struggling on a team no one will tell you what you're doing wrong they'll just move you to a different Group which is such a disservice to someone so someone actually ends up having this crap middling career not because they're dumb or bad it's because no one's ever given them the feedback to improve horrible now it goes the other way

around as well and you touched upon this before which is you can overdo the positive narrative as well you heroize somebody oh oh my God she's the best oh my God she's a genius I don't know how we ever got by without her just she'll take care of everything every and the problem is now we all start treating that person as the hero on the team and it can go multiple ways sometimes they start believing the press and egos get blown out or um sometimes um they make a mistake and we don't actually know how

to give them the feedback because now we're deathly afraid of them leaving or getting upset because we've made them to Heroes and the reality is it is very dangerous to create heroes or villains on your team that is all narrative very cool now I'm not saying don't celebrate people I'm not give people harsh feedback but if there's a a band if there's a ceiling in a floor just narrow it down a little bit stay away from from from the Sun you're Icarus and stay away from the floor there's a devil down there you know come

come closer to to the medium give people credit what they're do help people get feedback when they need it but there's no heroes or villains those are very rare on a team they exist they absolutely exist but be but be very wary I like for a lot of reasons what you're talking about one is you're talking about loving the person and coaching the behavior yeah whether it's a human skill or a technical skill or whatever um I love that and I also when when I was with the Seattle Seahawks when we're at our height when

we are at our best when our noses were pointed in the same direction together your your beaks it was awesome and one of the thing beaks I mean I know it was fast though too it was pretty good so when did the the things that was taking place is we were very clear that in the hallways we were never going to never is a too big of a word um we were great about not talking about somebody that wasn't amongst us yeah and it was a we were disciplined we would call on discipline if that

person's not here like just you know keep it moving like we don't need to say it to their face be able to confront them if it was hard you know and what ends up happening is that people start to feel really safe yeah because they don't they're not worried about what's happening in that conversation over there like is that about me yeah yeah it's really and by the way that's a very good standard which is in private conversations that you're actually not going to say anything about somebody that you wouldn't say to you wouldn't look

somebody in the face and say you're stupid or lazy you wouldn't do it um that person struggling totally legitimate you know um I'm worried about her totally legitimate right but I think that that is a great standard if you want to know where the the floor and the ceiling are if you wouldn't say it to their face then you're outside of the band and I like the in the um the tool that you provided which is let's say you and I are talking we we've slipped to a lower version of ourselves we're talking about suie

and and Stuart jumps in and says wait that I don't know that how did you put that that phrase that might be the case oh that is possible that is possible yet we don't know if they're struggling we don't know if they have the right resources if we're Mis coaching them whatever it's it's really easy which is just come up with 10 or 15 other options yeah and but which it could be the interruption is that all might be true or that might be how say say it one more time to me that might be

true that might be true yeah but like I don't dispel the initial thing I said they could be lazy or maybe or maybe yeah it's the or maybe it's the or maybe it's the doubt that's right yeah just it's the it's or maybe that's a good Clause so I'm not shutting anybody down yeah I'm simply adding options to the list you know what's funny is like I wish my wife was listening to us right now because she'd say you drive me crazy with always taking a Counterpoint you know I like the intellectual exercise of the

maybe and sometimes the Simplicity needs to be that Bell needs to be wrong which is like yeah actually they did steal the $10 from my dresser whatever it might be you know like time and place right right time yeah right time and place oh my God so all right very cool you also in want some more we can talk more practical stuff too yeah I love practical like I think we all do and people from sports like practical yeah so okay I'm just who that was a little bit was that a jab it was a

little jab maybe no it was a compliment was it a compliment 100% some of us like the invisible world some of us like but we live in a tangible world we some worlds are invisible remember those metrics we talked about like everybody loves a metric we do like metrics so like I want to I want to stand on a scale to know I'm losing weight just look in the mirror is not enough yes so I'll just wax philosophical based on some of the stuff we talked about so difficult conversations starting a difficult like it is

a skill it's a practi practice skill but it's actually not that difficult to start first of all I always like to ask permission especially if it's with one person like may I have a difficult conversation with you now I I need to have one can we do it now because then they can go yes or in an hour yeah or tomorrow like I like letting people know it's coming that's cool right for some people that creates incredible anxiety but it'll be it'll be really well that's up to them yeah but I your earlier scenario was

great because she knows herself that's what she wanted correct but for some like I like to start with can I can I just have a difficult or an uncom and slightly lower than difficult is uncomfortable uncomfortable like can I have an uncomfortable convers I like challenging have a chall birs of a Feather right I need to talk to you about X um I don't know how to do this um I'm probably going to get some of this wrong I might say the wrong thing please just bear with me because us having this conversation is more

important than me doing it perfectly is that o is can is that okay can you help me with that and that way because we all do these things we do them in our personal lives when we're arguing with a loved one or we do them at work which is do say the wrong thing and they will like white on rice they will attach themselves to the thing we got wrong and it's very difficult to unattach but when you set the ground rules at the beginning like I might screw some of this up but bear with

me I'm trying to get to this point right then you can you get permission to to backpedal yeah you dilute some of that assumed or ascribed power you know and it it is one of the again culprits to the or traditional org chart is like when you move higher up the org then it's easier to have difficult conversations because you determin and this it's one of it's like such a cheat because it it it can shortcut real skills yeah so what you just described are eloquent um there's empathy involved there's humanness and you're it's it's

human to human yeah and this is not easy for me too and let's is not try to be perfect let's try to work through something yeah yeah it's it's it's beautiful what you just did it's human to human and I think that's what we forget it's called a company it's literally a group of human beings M you know we are in company I can hear my anxious part of me okay so now this is like business person business person the anxiety in me is like this is by the way everything we're talking about feels at

home this 100% I hope that everything we're talking about we're building here at finding Mastery that being said there's another part which is watching the p&l like you know making sure that uh we are laying the right bets and the right Investments both both matter both matter right if we run out of money we run out of time to do this thing together and so that's a part that I can hear probably some of the other anxious folks they're like okay great you guys are psychologically safe really nice people people are probably great teammates to

each other but are you executing in high octane environments are you performing when it matters how do you how do you get to that so I've made that mistake and I've I've gone to too far down oh my god I've created an art project or hippie commune yeah you know and at the end of the day it's not an art project or a hippie commune it's a business but for me um I'm very clear on what the business is right this is this goes to the point of purpose is the purpose of a business to

make money no according to Milton Freedman yes but that's gotten us to a lot of trouble the past years you've been loud about this yeah you know the the purpose of a business is to advance something and money is the fuel right just like is the purpose of a car to buy more gas no the purpose of a car is to go somewhere and the gas helps us get there well money is gas that's what it does it provides energy and so yes I want it to have gas now does it have to have gas

at any expense no of course not I'm not going to mow people over to get to a gas station right right so we know that there's ethics that have to be included right I want to kill people to get gas although some companies you it does get out of balance ethical fading different conversation but the problem is is most companies obsess about the gas because it's the easiest thing to see um and they obsess about the gas because they don't actually have an articulated Vision you know to be the best most admired blah blah blah

value value that none of that is Vision that is uninspiring pum or at best a long-term goal and it's usually about you and real vision is about us it's an invitation you and I discovered that our Visions are actually inclusive of each other that's right right great vision includes other companies if they want to join in or other people you can love a company's vision and not do business with them right like I celebrate companies that I don't necessarily buy their products because I love their Vision I love what they stand for for me Patagonia

is one of those like are you familiar with their brand of course yeah I love Patagonia I don't buy it like I'm same with you but I I will support it and celebrate it and I'm probably offered them more free PR than you know than like just I I've written about them I've I've got one vest I advocate for them I think I I think I might have one vest yeah right yeah um yeah probably everybody does and when I say might cuz that was the last time I wore it yeah you know yeah but

I think I have it because I'm like I should have one you know they're doing good in the world they're doing good in the world I should show some love let's go back to purpose um for just a moment is that something I learned from S I feel sorry for anybody who's forced to listen to us because our ability to meander off topic is for me magical listen we're going to we're going to land this bird on the perch here there's there's a I mean this is a too much this is no I me I

appreciate I appreciate dad humor and a good pun all right so you're just egging me on now yeah so okay uh purpose I learned this from Sati Nadella the company is very clear on their purpose yeah okay and then he did some beautiful iido is he said okay right what we actually want to do is we want to have Microsoft's purpose be in service of each of our employee purpose that Judo and aido is radical yeah so in other words the 200,000 that are are are working here make sure you know your purpose because Microsoft

could just be the greatest platform such and such to fuel your purpose by the way it's m it's mutual right I want when it's at its best I want companies to know their purpose and I want individuals to know their why as well because if I know my why and and you are clear on what your why is not some purpose statement that you put on your website because somebody if you're really somebody in marketing told you you had to like true purpose that you actually make decisions with right that used to filter decisions if

if a company's crystal clear and it's why and employees are crystal clear in their why what you get is somebody goes oh my God you working here helps me fulfill my cause I I I I will work here forever and the company looks at you and says oh my God your why helps us Advance ours we want you here forever we love you now we're playing the infinite game the right and and so 100% however there's a finite game inside of it I love that you did that yeah and that's and that's totally fine and

there's good days bad days right but what you said before is like well what's the role of and and there's nothing wrong with an honest conversation going and and by the way I think the mistake that a lot of leaders make is they think they have to have everything sorted out in their head before they have the conversation with somebody I find that sometimes presenting a half baked cake is sometimes more valuable so for example I'm in a situation and I don't know what to do I'm going to tell you where I'm stuck like you

you belong in this organization you're a cultural contributor I love that you believe in our CA you've been great I'm struggling because you you work in an area that is directly a revenue producer and that revenue is the fuel for our movement and we've had so many quarters of underperformance we've tried coaching and you've been receptive to coaching I got to give you credit but but I'm really struggling because at one point I want to support you but at another point I also have to make sure that this movement continues to be fueled and your

and your team's performance is directly impacting that I need you to work with me to figure this out and it becomes a conversation that's really and people and what we're doing in that conversation is we're giving someone agency yeah and and you you know the the research on how people feel at work about control you know about this stuff so there's in the 1970s um there's a bunch of social scientists that did um some work called The White Hall studies you know the whiteall studies I do oh you of course you do you have a

PhD in this this is really good yeah was like I was about to mansplain the white hole studies to you okay so the whiteall studies for those who aren't phds in Psychology they there was this theory that these social scientists had in the 1970s um of this thing called executive stress syndrome the theory being that as you make your way up the corporate ladder you suffer more stress because there's more pressure the stakes are higher etc etc etc right more on your on your plate more on your shoulders and so they wanted to understand executive

stress and they did it in the halls of government in the UK in whiteall because that way they could account for for even healthare because in private sector you you kind account for even healthare so that's why they did in government and what they discovered was the complete opposite which is as you make your way up the ranks your stress goes down and it's not because of the pressures it's because as you make your way up the ranks you have more agency Define Agency for us you get a little more control as to what your

day looks like as to what meetings you can say yes or no to you get a little more control as to how you do things and if you're really good something if you're really good at something you can be the expert in that and if you're really bad at something you can literally say I'm never doing that when you're junior you have none of those luxuries you're told when to be somewhere you're told how to do something you have to be good at everything because that's your job when you're junior which is really difficult right

and so they found that the most Junior employees not only have the highest levels of stress but with high stress you get higher rates of some cancers diabetes and heart disease so people are dying of heart attacks more often at Junior levels not senior levels right which I find fascinating this is an awesome finding because agency is a word that um if you don't double click on the meaning yeah you know the way I operationalize agency is like oh yeah I choose you know like I have a sense of power I have a sense of

autonomy agency and autonomy and efficacy those three words get thrown around a bit but I I I'm I get to choose I get some choice and so if I have a difficult situation that might include your employment right right which is existential right I want you very much involved in that conversation and it's not a threat it's a conversation about a about a situation that I'm in and as the leader and the person with the decision making power in this situation I don't know what to do it's cool right and so I'm going to tell

you that I'm stuck and don't know what to do rather than leave you out of it and make my decision you you subjected to my decision and I find that to be an amazing to give agency one of the best bosses I ever wait wait I want to yeah don't forget the story okay I'm not sure we can give it not sure we can give agency somebody has to oh I see what you mean you can create the condition you can allow the conditions but somebody has to be able to step in the ring I

think they we already have agency and the conditions even if they're unfavorable the person is either going to oh I see the look see the look go on go on cuz this is now getting complicated yeah it's it's multifaceted let me give you a simple tell me the scenario and then and then I'll and then I'll throw a wrench in the works or some grease some grease there's a bird analogy in there maybe a worm yeah it's getting so bad all right so I'm optimists some more often show up for meetings late because they always

think they'll get there on time and as an optimist I'm habitually within the 15-minute Rage of acceptability but but usually above start time um I am fundamentally an optimistic uh earned though and I know that you've got a point of view on optimism which I can't wait to so so just just keeping the warm analogy because you reminded me so I once showed up for a meeting late and as I walked in just a few minutes late somebody put their head up and very aggressively said you know Simon the early bird gets the worm and

I looked up and said the early worm gets eaten and then I sat down sorry God so agency oh agency so letting letting was or not letting but um providing agency so I'm going to use the letting word as an analogy or as a crosswalk is that uh reporters up at the Seattle Seahawks would say back to us um coach Carol and I what we're the culture we're trying to create along with all of the other coaches and athletes would say wow you guys really let people be themselves here no we're not letting anyone be

themselves we're trying to understand who they are and then celebrating all of that so it's not letting it's a very controlling word and you know why letting is fair because it's not it's I I agree with you and I understand what you're saying about your organization but the reason the word letting is fair is because those reporters work in an organization where they are not allowed to be themselves which is wild whereas the opposite of letting right so they are disallowed to be themselves and so edited and they are edited they are pushed back they

are stomped on they are not seen they're not heard so they work for newspapers and TV stations and radio stations so when they say boy you let them beat themselves that's long they're speaking of longing that's right so it's a fair statement it is but we wanted to course correct we're not letting someone be themselves we are disciplined in our approach to know who they are and then celebrate it same with I don't think we give agency we we can we can take it we can but that's the problem like we and we can create

conditions that make it very very hard for somebody to flex their agency yeah but it's kind of like empowerment we don't give empowerment I don't Empower you you have power so here's the reason I'm stressed with your line of thinking stressed acutely stressed no minor minor uncomfortable mhm the reason can we have this conversation what's that can we have this I a cou and tell you about my childhood no no here's why I'm somewhat stressed by this line of thinking which is you're making it unilateral and the reality is is we're social animals and yes

you have quote unquote agency over yourself decision-making power over your actions and how you show up da d d but we work in Social environments and we're social animals and we do respond to the environments we're in you take a good person you put them in a bad environment that person will act abhor you know and vice versa prison or take somebody who who who is not considered trustworthy and you change their environment and that person will rise up and shine in a way that nobody ever expected so I don't think it's fair to say

people have it or it's taken away it's both I think it goes both ways like I can make you have none and I can also help create the conditions in which you're allowed to step into it at the same time you can either lean into it whether I've given it to you or not and you can also hold it back whether the opportunity is available or not yeah as Leaders we can foster an environment which are incredibly powerful for people to express their agency yes how much they want to express is a choice they make

and this is the the the the Great rates of historical greatness those are the ones that even in the most deplorable hostile conditions flexed agency yes and those so if they can do it if Victor Frankle can do it yeah I think I can get I I can do it like so I'm inspired by those that are able to do that and I want to understand the conditions internally yeah that have allowed them to express High agency in some of the most deplorable conditions that would never reach yeah modern modern empy and and and Victor

Frankle who was in the concentration caps during the second world war and couldn't understand why all these people who are all suffering the same conditions the same uphar conditions why some had the will to live and some didn't and now we know from his writing you know we can't we can't choose the conditions but we can choose our reaction to those conditions and we can be more clear about our why and we can more be more clear about our why and I think the and the value of those examples are because they're so extreme most

of us aren't work you know it's never we'll never come close thank goodness and that is a profound insight and the point being that no matter what our conditions are and I think what we're talking about it's a difficult conversation to have these days because the the the the the bedfellow to agency is boundary well that's cool I was going to go accountability bedfellow is a cool framing bedfellow to agency is I said boundary boundary boundaries right I like it I was going accountability and and and here's what I'm getting at and why it's an

why it's a more complex conversation than it than it than 20 years ago it would have been is because this term boundaries has been bandied about and folks like me and folks like you talk about these terms and they get latched on and used as swords rather than Shields how about it so you'll find in a in a work environment usually a younger employee but not not exclusively which is you're not respecting my boundaries or I have boundaries and declare they're not declarations they're conversations right and and also there's irony to some of these conversations

as well because they think they're expressing agency by putting up boundaries deing boundaries that's right but are you also willing to obey somebody else's boundaries that's cool so I'll give you a real life example that showed up in Co young employee working for a company High performer doing great companies looking after them wonderful and and she quits and in the exit interview they say what's going on we didn't see this coming she says um I'm burnt out and Company's like what like we know your workload we know like we know it's a highly stressful time

now but burnt out what made no sense turns out what was happening is this person was an empath this person was a great listener and during Co especially you know the way that we used to work is we go to work and then after work we go out with our friends and we vent about work or everything else that's going on in our life and that was taken away from us yeah so what happened was usually younger but not exclusively so people found the empath on the team and that person would always say yes to

the phone call and would always be there to listen sometimes affirm not necessarily great narratives about boyfriends girlfriends work life bosses colleagues whatever and this poor these poor empaths were taking on everybody else's stress at work to the point of burnout right and I I I I told this story on the stage once and a young employee came up to me goes oh my God I'm doing that like there's somebody on my team I go to with all my problems my my boyfriend problems my work problems and they're always there for me I'm doing that

and I said yeah you've constructed your boundaries you've told work I'm not doing this and I'm not doing that and yet on a daily basis you're violating somebody else's boundaries how about it right yeah so I like what you're doing here yeah it's good and so it's a it's a complex conversation because agency it's these and again I this is I think the mistake of all of this leadership performance stuff all of it all the books all the authors all of us all the podcasters the huge mistake of this is we usually talk about these

things in isolation like you have to do this you have agency don't be the victim whatever it is set your boundaries tell you but the problem is we're social it's all interactive you know that the way we show up the way we act it does have impact on other people's feelings lives work and yet we are responsible you know it's like like if I say something mean to somebody and I hurt their feelings I have to take accountability I'm not responsible for the way you feel actually you are like you're a dick and you made

me feel bad cuz you talked about something that is my insecurity and that's not nice so we this is the Paradox of Being Human and it's the Paradox of being a a leader or an employee or anything which is every single moment of every single day we are both individuals and a member of a group love that we're both an individual and I'm in a family I'm in a relationship I'm on a team I'm in a church I'm in a community right and I every day I'm a sapian I'm a Sapien every day I have

to weigh decisions some inconsequential and some very consequential do I put myself first at the expense of the group or do I put the group first at the expense of myself and the answer is yes it's a paradox and there's an entire school of thought that says no you always prioritize self over group because if you're not healthy you can't support the group and there's an entire school that says no you always prioritize group because if they don't care about you when you're in a time of need they won't be there for you and the

answer is that's the answer this is one of the reasons being human is uncomfortable and messy and complex and complicated because none of it is clear but there only one thing that I know you are you and you are one of many every moment of every day now go ahead and live a life and this is hard and this is why leadership is hard because we teach people how to be good at their jobs and we don't teach people how to look after other people and that's what makes any team or any company great that's

awesome I love what you're doing here it's really clear well done and that's my huge complaint about most of this leadership Theory ship and by the way maslov got it wrong maslov's hierarchy of needs right he puts at the bottom food and shelter and the third level up he has Human Relationships now belonging belonging right now I've never heard of anybody Dying by suicide because they were hungry I've heard of people dying by suicide because they were lonely belonging seems to be more important no the mistake he made and by the way he put self-actualization

at the top as if if you reach the top of a pyramid literally and look down at all the UN actualized people I mean seriously anyway God he's only half right if you only think of in think of us as individuals 100% True Food and shelter absolutely come first and belonging absolutely comes later and we should be working for for for self-actualization as individuals but the problem is we're also members of groups which means in that scenario belonging comes first and food and shelter is probably number three and at the top is shared actualization which

is what purpose at work is and that's why when Sacha talks about I want you to find your why so you can have self-actualization I want us to know our why because you working here will have shared actualization and that's why we get along and so Mas is half wrong and half right never heard it never heard your take never heard this take on it and it's gonna cause me some dilemma because I like maslo fine and I and I he's fine he's just half right I've never heard he just never considered he just never

considered us as social animals except as a rung as an individual yeah that's interesting yeah I part of my writings is that we are social beings masquerading like individual contributors yeah right we are we are more like a coral reef and and this is the hardest thing for every leader to have to deal with at some point and every Junior person won't understand this until they get more senior and then every leader will have to be confronted with it the team is more important than any individual on the team and that is brutal which is

I can sacrifice one person for the good of the team I cannot sacrifice the team for the good of one person otherwise the whole thing collapses and that is excruciating now most too many leaders take that too seriously too quickly and fire too quickly with this guys of them doing it for the greater good which they're not it is a it is the last resort to destroy someone's livelihood for the good of the team but it's true which is which is the team is more important an individual on the team but I have to protect

every individual on the team to make the team flourish and it is this is one of the reasons why we have to teach human skills and we have to teach leadership when people join our organizations when people join a sports team we drill into them how to throw how to catch how to run the skills of playing the game we teach them the rules over and over and over and over until they are literally experts in the playing of the game and how you how you throw a ball and all the things and yet as

we promote we usually promote people who are good at the game into a position of leadership which is wrong right there's no correlation between how good you are and how good you are at leading other people like Tommy Lort Soo ball player great coach Isaiah Thomas like Michael Jordan Michael Jord phenomenal players terrible coaches right no correlation that's right but as we promote performers we give them zero education on how to lead and then we're surprised when the organizations break or how they misunderstand some of the things we're talking about like boundaries they misunderstand why

when we say things like the team is more important than the individual fine I'll just fire all the bad performance no no no no no that's not what I'm saying that's not what I'm saying right right well I think most people actually don't fire they they hold on too long to the high performers rather than fire I think that's true I think we I think we hold on too long to the the high performers of of low trust yeah of C disrup culture and and at the altar of performance we know that they're having negative

effects on everybody else and we know that if we let them go it'll raise the performance of everybody else but we're just it's too they're so good their numbers are so good yeah it's so easy like this right their numbers are so good but the problem is they're not loyal to you no um the team hates them you're destroying everybody everybody knows and they're waiting and I think your your point is such a good one which is if we say the team is more important than any individual on the team that doesn't mean get rid

of your weak ones what it does mean is that get rid of your toxic High performers your toxic Geniuses because the team is more important than any individual performer on the team I love it it's your idea shared at this point Co co-contributors the two of us so let's go back to we are the day after the Super Bowl yeah 49ers lost the Super Bowl yep you are in the team meeting room the next day yeah it's kind of the last day of the Season yeah what do you say to the team oh I I

think you you don't give a a rah rah speech you don't give a we got next year look how well you did we made it to the Super Bowl it's unfair you have to affirm the feelings that they're having they're they just been told they lost the Super Bowl well if you've lost that means you're the loser now of course that's nonsense you made it to the Super Bowl but that's not how it feels and they're dejected and they're sad and they're hurt and we have to affirm all of those which because they the the

finite game because they they lost the finite game that's all and and we have to just sit in that with them be like boy this this hurts this really hurts this really sucks you're not selling the infinite game at that point no no no no it's you're acknowledging that this is a finite game you know I I'm a great believer in honesty but I'm also if you if you have an infinite mindset you have more of a sense of timing right which is you have to you have to tell the truth and you have to

be honest and you have to get people through it but you don't have to do it all now I'll give you I'll give you an a real life example that happened to me so um a friend of mine was in a play so I went to see to support and I can say with absolute certainty that it was easily one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life I mean I can't tell you it was torturous and had it not been my friend I would have walked out and if I could have walked

out twice I would have um it was so bad God right yeah now at the end of the play I went and hung out in the lobby and my friend came out to you know friends and family she's still in costume and makeup and she comes up to me jacked up with adrenaline she just came off the stage what you think and she said what' you think exactly now she knows I'm an honest broker she knows that I strive for honesty as often as I can right oh yeah now now is not the time or

the place right when she's jacked up on adrenaline to have an emotional what will be deeply emotional because it's not rational right now so I can't lie right that's not allowed either so I said oh my God I'm so proud of you I said it was such a thrill to see you on the stage doing your thing I've never seen you before and it was a real rush to see you when you came out all true oh my God thank you thank you thank you all true and I said hugged goodbye next two or three

days go past and we talked and I can I said can I tell you what I thought about the play adrenaline is down emotions are relaxed she's in a rational State and she goes yeah of course and I go well the script was weak she goes yeah it was he said the directing was pretty bad she goes I know I said I like you she goes thanks and I that one other actor was incredible yeah but overall it was she goes no I agree and so the same goes here for the like there's a time

and place like yes you have to be honest but not you don't bring emot irrational you don't bring rational thoughts to an emotional gunfight amazing you know amazing this is an emotional time you hold space they feel like let them feel like amazing it's okay and then a month from now we'll have the rational conversation and the infinite game and that's when you get the all raw Rod up again Simon what a fun conversation fun for me too yeah I really enjoyed meeting you in this way and having fun exploring complicated invisible ideas trying to

make them tangible I think we I think we landed no no no that didn't work I was going to say I think we landed a plane we landed the bird on the perch finally it's finally there there's definitely a bird on a perch somewhere somewhere yeah I I want to say thank you and where where can folks that um would love a little bit more of this where where can we drive them to or suggest they go all the usual places your Instagrams your simon.com simon.com your what are I Tik toks oh yeah yeah yeah

oh that's probably a good thing thanks for the the softball that I completely waed so I'm obsessed with human skills and so we've made it um we've made it quarter our very existence to help teach those human skills so at simons.com yes we uh we are teaching the human skills online learning uh iners stuff as well um teaching human skills to individuals or or teams so that they can do all the things that we've been talking about for the past however long we've been talking I love it I hope we find a way to work

together Co create something it'd be a lot of fun a lot of fun yeah thanks for having me thank you Simon