Simon Sinek । 50 Minutes for the NEXT 50 Years of Your LIFE

I have five little rules that you can follow as you find your spark and bring your spark to life the first is to go after the things that you want let me tell you a story so a friend of mine and I we went for a run in Central Park the road runners organization on the weekends they host races and it's very common at the end of the race they'll have a sponsor who will give away something apples or bagels or something and on this particular day when we got to the end of the run

there were some free bagels and they had picnic table set up and on one side was a group of volunteers on the table were boxes of bagels and on the other side was a long line of Runners waiting to get their free Bagel so I said to my friend let's let's get a bagel and he looked at me and said ah that Line's too long and I said free bagel and he said I don't want to wait in line and I was like free bagel and he says Nah let's it's too long and that's when

I realized that there's two ways to see the world some people see the thing that they want and some people see the thing that prevents them from getting the thing that they want I could only see the bagels he could only see the line and so I walked up to the line I leaned in between two people put my hand in the box and pulled out two bagels and no one got mad at me because the rule is you can go after whatever you want you just cannot deny anyone else to go after whatever they

want now I had to sacrifice choice I didn't get to choose which bagel I got I got whatever I pulled out but I didn't have to wait in line so the point is is you don't have to wait in line you don't have to do it the way everybody else has done it you can do it your way you can break the rules you just can't get in the way of somebody else getting what they want that's rule number one rule number two I like this one in the 18th century there was something that spread

across Europe and eventually made its way to America called Perle fever also known as the Black Death of childbed basically what was happening is women were giving birth and they would die within 48 hours after giving birth this black death of childbirth was the ravage of Europe and it got worse and worse and worse over the course of over a century in some hospitals it was as high as 70% of women who gave birth who would die as a result of giving birth but this was the Renaissance this was the time of empirical data and

Science and we had thrown away things like tradition and mysticism these were men of science these were doctors and these doctors and Men of science wanted to study and try and find the reason for this black death of child bed and so they got to work studying and they would study the corpses of the women who had died and in the morning they would conduct autopsies and then in the afternoon they would go and deliver babies and finish their rounds and it wasn't until somewhere in the mid 1800s that Dr Oliver Wendell holes father of

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes realized that all of these doctors who are conducting autopsies in the morning weren't washing their hands before they delivered babies in the afternoon and he pointed it out and said guys you're the problem and they ignored him and called him crazy for 30 years until finally somebody realized that if they simply washed their hands it would go away and that's exactly what happened when they started sterilizing their instruments and washing their hands the black death of child bed disappeared the lesson here is sometimes you're the problem and my point

is is take accountability for your actions you can take all the credit in the world for the things that you do right as long as you also take responsibility for the things you do wrong it must be a balanced equation you don't get it one way and not the other you get to take credit when you also take accountability that's lesson two lesson three take care of each other the United States Navy Seals are perhaps the most elite Warriors in the world and one of the seals was asked who makes it through the selection process

who is able to become a seal and his answer was I can't tell you you the kind of person that becomes a seal I can't tell you the kind of person that makes it through buds but I can tell you the kind of people who don't become seals he says the guys that show up with huge bulging muscles covered in tattoos who want to prove to the world how tough they are none of them make it through he said the preining leaders who like to delegate all their responsibility and never do anything themselves none of

them make it through he said the Star College athletes who've never really been tested to the core of their being none of them make it through he says some of the guys that make it through are skinny and scrawny he said some of the guys that make it through you will see them shivering out of fear he says however all the guys that make it through when they find themselves physically spent emotionally spent when they have nothing left to give physically or emotionally somehow some way they are able to find the energy to dig down

deep inside themselves to find the energy to help the guy next to them they become seals he said you want to be an elite Warrior it's not about how tough you are it's not about how smart you are it's not about how fast you are if you want to be an elite Warrior you better get really really good at helping the person to left of you and helping the person to the right of you cuz that's how people advance in the world the world is too dangerous and the world is too difficult for you to

think that you can do these things alone if you find your spark I commend you now who you going to ask for help and when are you going to accept help when it's offered learn that skill learn by practicing helping each other it'll be the single most valuable thing you ever learn in your entire life to accept help one of it's offered and to ask for it when you know that you can't do it the amazing thing is when you learn to ask for help you'll discover that there are people all around you who've always

wanted to help you they just didn't think you needed it because you kept pretending that you had everything under control and the minute you say I don't know what I'm doing I'm stuck I'm scared I don't think I can do this you will find that lots of people who love you will rush in and take care of you but that'll only happen if you learn to take care of them first Lesson Four Nelson Mandela is a particularly special case study in the leadership world because he is universally regarded as a great leader you can take

other personalities and depending on the nation you go to we have different opinions about other personalities but Nelson Mandela across the world is universally regarded as a great leader he was actually the son of a tribal Chief and he was asked one day say how did you learn to be a great leader and he responded that he would go with his father to tribal meetings and he remembers two things when his father would meet with other Elders one they would always sit in a circle and two his father was always the last to speak you

will be told your whole life that you need to learn to listen I would say that you need to learn to be the last to speak speak I see it in boardrooms every day of the week even people who consider themselves good leaders who may actually be decent leaders will walk into a room and say here's the problem here's what I think but I'm interested in your opinion let's go around the room it's too late the skill to hold your opinions to yourself until everyone has spoken does two things one it gives everybody else the

feeling that they have been heard it gives everyone else the ability to feel that they have contributed and two you get the benefit of hearing what everybody else has to think before you render your opinion the skill is really to keep your opinions to yourself if you agree with somebody don't nod yes if you disagree with somebody don't nod no simply sit there take it all in and the only thing you're allowed to do is ask questions so that you can understand what they mean and why they have the opinion that they have you must

understand from where they are speaking why they have the opinion they have not just what they are saying and at the end you will get your turn it sounds easy it's not practice being the last to speak that's what Nelson Mandela did number five my favorite one of all true story there was a former under Secretary of Defense who's invited to give a speech at a large conference about a thousand people and he was standing on the stage with his cup of coffee and a styrofoam cup giving his prepared remarks with his PowerPoint behind him

and he took a sip of his coffee and he smiled and he looked down at the coffee and then he went off script and he said you know last year I spoke at this exact same conference last year I was still the under secretary and when I spoke here last year they flew me here business class and when I arrived at the airport there was somebody waiting for me to take me to my hotel and they took me to my hotel and they had already checked me in and they just took me up to my

room and the next morning I came downstairs and there was someone waiting in the lobby to greet me and they drove me to this here same venue they took me through the back entrance and took me into the green room and handed me a cof cup of coffee in a beautiful ceramic cup he says I'm no longer the under secretary I flew here coach I took a taxi to my hotel and I checked myself in when I came down the lobby this morning I took another taxi to this venue I came in the front door

and found my way backstage and when I asked someone do you have any coffee he pointed to the coffee machine in the corner and I poured myself a cup of coffee into this here Styrofoam cup he says the lesson is the ceramic cup was never meant for me it was meant for the position I held I deserve ve a styrofoam cup remember this as you gain Fame as you gain Fortune as you gain position and seniority people will treat you better they will hold doors open for you they will get you a cup of tea

and coffee without you even asking they will call you sir and ma'am and they will give you stuff none of that stuff is meant for you that stuff is meant for the position you hold it is meant for the level that you have achieved of of leader or success or whatever you want to call it but you will always deserve a styrofoam cup remember that remember that lesson of humility and gratitude you can accept all the free stuff you can accept all the perks absolutely you can enjoy them but just be grateful for them and

know that they're not for you that none of us deserve the perks that we get we all deserve a styrofoam cup I reached a point in my career where I had fallen out of love with my work and uh I didn't want to wake up and do it anymore I just I was done everyone will go through stress everyone will go through trauma mental health is the big and important topic right now you know I think when somebody says fine they're lying there's nothing more dangerous in a modern society than a lonely man I need

to somebody to sit in the mud with me don't need them to fix me or clean me off or give me a towel I just need them to sit in the mud with me so I don't feel alone when I'm sitting in the mud when my friends are struggling I don't say take your time when my friends are struggling I say go on when my friends are crying I say go on the underlying message is and I am here sitting in the mud with you it is the greatest honor of my life I live my

life by that code I reached a point in my career where I had fallen out of love with my work um superficially my my life was good you know I owned my own business we had amazing clients we did amazing work and uh I didn't want to wake up and doing anymore I just I was done you know and I was deeply embarrassed feeling bad because I shouldn't look what I'm doing look at the things I'm getting to do like I shouldn't be you know depressed or you know not want to go to work and

so I kept it all those negative feelings to myself which really is stupid um and the feelings got darker and darker and darker and they feed on each they feed on themselves and that's the problem with keeping negative feelings to yourself they they fester and grow and it got to the point where I was in really a dark place but all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier more in control and more successful than I really felt so nobody knew and uh it wasn't until a very dear friend of mine came to

me and said there's something wrong there's something different I don't know what it is but something's off and I for whatever reason I I opened up and came clean and it was cathartic you know it was a weight lifted off my shoulders and all of that energy that went into lying hiding and faking every day I now had new energy Renewed Energy to actually find a solution I think it's really hard when your friends say to you there's something wrong and you go no everything's fine and then they let it go or they're not even

willing to say something's off they just kind of it's too uncomfortable you know we don't like discomfort we certainly don't like causing discomfort and we certainly don't want to create tension or a fight and so we just leave it and I think the courageous friends the friends who truly truly truly love you are the ones who lean into that tension and go I don't care what you say and I know you're lying to me I love you to death and I know something's wrong and I'm going to keep asking you until you tell me you

know and more importantly whatever it is I got you I love you you're safe I don't know what it is and I don't care what it is just know that I'm your partner and you are never alone you know she said to me you're not alone here um so I think the she had the courage to get me to open up and then I just stepped into the the safe space mental health is the big and important topic right now and I had a conversation with somebody recently and I've realized I actually don't like the

term mental health you know um it sounds like a fixed destination it sounds like you know if you if you don't have health like if you're not perfect there's something wrong with you so any kind of Divergence or sadness means you're imperfect that's not true and I think it's an unfair standard to call it mental health and I think because at the end of the day like think about your body when you go to the gym we call that Fitness and some days you have good days at the gym and some days you have bad

at the gym bad days at the gym some days your body feels amazing you can lift huge weight and someday for whatever reason you got enough sleep you you're eating well you're hydrated you just your body's just not working that day and we're all familiar with that and it doesn't really bother us you're like H bad day today and you move on and you allow that to happen but we don't treat our mental Fitness the same way you know being a human you are 100% mentally fit if you have sadness and have if you have

joy and if you have doubt and uncertainty and insecurity that that's what it is to be human like your body sometimes has pain there's nothing wrong with your body and so I I I like to call it mental Fitness rather than mental health right I'm always working on my mental Fitness and I allow for periods of Darkness so right now when you said how are you the space that I'm sitting in is I'm actually feeling quite lonely and I learned about how to manage mental Fitness during Co more than I ever had prior because we

had to deal with so much right and so prior I would have been embarrassed by saying I'm feeling lonely I would have um hit at it or suppressed it don't like negative feelings uh whereas now I'm just sitting in it not worried about it um I'm allowing it to go through me like I'm allowing myself to have a bad day at the gym and weirdly even though it's not necessarily fun um weirdly appreciative of it because it's makes me human I acknowledge that I'm human it's relatable and so that's how I feel right now I'm

more open about being in a darker space in a in the shadows right now because because it makes me feel it makes me feel quite frankly normal it makes me feel human and it's part of mental Fitness you know and if I didn't have off days or off weeks then how would I know what to work on you know how would I know what good good looks like how would I know how to appreciate the Happy Days if I didn't have some days that were down so I'm I'm weirdly grateful for what I'm going through

right now you know human beings are despite our own self opinions we're not that strong and we're not that smart but in teams in groups we're amazing and so trying to solve your own life problems by yourself so I've got some really bad news you can't which is why addiction exists because I can't solve these problems myself I can't overcome the stress myself so I'm going to drink you know or I'm going to do something else that's harmful to myself my family and my relationships as all addictions are whether you're addicted to your cell phone

addicted to alcohol addicted to drugs you're going to destroy your relationships you're going to destroy yourself and there is tremendous value for somebody who loves you to say I got you I'm here let's do this together or for you to call a friend and say I think I'm struggling and I think I can't do this alone can you help me it's humiliating but it is perhaps the single greatest lesson that any human being can learn which is to say I don't know and I need help and I think being comfortable with asking for help and

saying I don't know um turns out we're surrounded by people who want to take care of us and help us but they don't because they didn't think we needed it because we were too busy presenting ourselves as perfect and having all the answers so they just didn't but they would if we just asked so when people say they feel lonely I think what it is is that you know we're social animals who want to feel um included but also feel like um people see hear and understand us and I think my symptoms of of loneliness

are feeling misunderstood or like people don't get me or or worse I'm struggling to communicate or present myself in a way that people will get who I am we can't do it alone you know when you find Darkness you you whatever however you want to Define your Darkness you know you feel alone you feel like nobody can help you you feel like you have no agency you feel like a a lack of control and the first thing that a lot of us should do is reach out to a friend and say I'm struggling or I

need help or I'm lonely or I'm depressed or I'm sad whatever your whatever the feeling is so the first mistake people make is they try and fix don't try and fix it's not it's not a fixing thing you know it's like I had a bad day at the gym nothing to fix you know nothing to fix and I have a rule with my friends my rule is no crying alone my my close friends all know this and we all obey it like I'll get a call from somebody who's a somebody who's a significant person in

the world that people know who they are and they'll call me and say I do you have a minute and I'll be like yeah what's what's up they're like I just I think I need to cry I'm like go what have you what's on your mind and they'll tell me what's on their mind and they will cry and that's my rule my rule with my friends is no crying alone because if you're at the point of absolute frustration exhaustion whatever it is that you can't hold it in I'd rather you call me or one of

us and you do it with somebody you should never cry alone and so I'm really good when I'm in a place like this of calling somebody and telling them because I don't want to go through this alone and some of my friends do have the do have the skills where they can say how do you feel oh this is how I feel that must be really frustrating yeah it's really hard tell me more about that well I'm sort of going through this and that and they know how to hold space that's all I need I

need to somebody to sit in the mud with me don't need them to fix me or clean me off or give me a towel I just need them to sit in the mud with me so I don't feel alone when I'm sitting in the mud and I think it's our responsibility to be able to have that skills that skill set to do it for our friends and the people we love or our colleagues we don't teach listening we don't teach difficult conversations the fact that there's so much conversation about mental health right now is not

is of course in part because we've just come through this crazy ass thing called covid and locks downs and social media sure you can pile that on if you want but I think really what it is the fact that such a loud conversation about mental health is a spotlight on the fact that we do not know how to build deep meaningful relationships I think it is an indictment on our current state of affairs that not only do we not have the skills to be there for our friends but we're we're the way we're reacting to

it is by trying to seek resources to help me rather than teach me how to help my friends I think we're going about it um and it only and I always say leadership is about going first that's why we call you leader right doesn't mean you have the answers it doesn't mean you're right it just means you st stepped first into the unknown that we uh took the risk to go first and so in a relationship one of you can take the lead one of you can go first to set the example of what it

looks like and feels like to say I'm having a bad day today and I don't need you to fix it I know what I'm going through I want to tell you all of this stuff because I want you to be there with me and I want to be there with you cuz I don't want to feel this way alone there are two things that I I think that great leaders need to have empathy and perspective and I think these things are very often forgotten leaders are so often so concerned about their status or their position

in an organization they actually Forget Their real job and the real job of a leader is not about being in charge it's about taking care of those in our charge and I don't think people realize this and I don't think people train for this when we're Junior our only responsibility is to be good at our jobs that's all we really have to do and some people actually go get Advanced educations and so that they can be really good at their jobs accountants or whatever right and you show up and you work hard and the company

will give us tons and tons of training how to do our jobs they'll show us how to use the software they'll send us away for a few days to get trained in whatever it is that we're doing for the company and then they expect us to go be good at our jobs and that's what we do we work very hard and if you're good at your job uh they'll promote you and at some point you'll get promoted to a position where we're now responsible for the people who do the job we used to do but

nobody shows us how to do that and that's why we get managers and not leaders because the reason our managers are micromanaging us is because they actually do know how to do do the job better than us that's what got them promoted really what we have to do is go through a transition some people make it quickly some people make it slowly and unfortunately some people will never make that transition at all which is we have to go this through this transition of being responsible for the job and then turning it to somebody who's now

responsible for the people who are responsible for the job and as I said before one of the great things that is lacking in most of our companies is that they are not teaching us how to lead and Leadership is a skill like any other is a practice learnable skill and it is something that you work on it's like a muscle if you practice it all the days uh you will get good at it and you will become a strong leader if you stop PR practicing you will become a weak leader like parenting everyone has the

capacity to be a parent doesn't mean everybody wants to be a parent and doesn't mean everybody should be a parent leadership is the same we all have the capacity to be a leader doesn't mean everybody should be a leader and it doesn't mean everybody wants to be a leader and the reason is because it comes at Great personal sacrifice remember you're not in charge you're responsible for those in your charge that means things like when everything goes right you have to give away all the credit and when everything goes wrong you have to take all

the responsibility that sucks right it's things like staying late to show somebody what to do it's things like when something does actually break when something goes wrong instead of yelling and screaming and taking over you say try again when the overwhelming pressures are not on them the overwhelming pressures are on us at the end of the day great leader ERS are not responsible for the job they're responsible for the people who are responsible for the job they're not even responsible for the results I love talking to CEOs and say what's your priority and they put

their hands on their hips all proud and they say my priority is my customer I'm like really you haven't talked to a customer in 15 years there's no CEO on the planet responsible for the customer they're just not they're responsible for the people who responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer I'll tell you a true story a few months ago I stayed at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas it is a wonderful hotel and the reason it's a wonderful hotel is not because of the fancy beds any hotel can go and buy

a fancy bed the reason it's a wonderful hotel is because of the people who work there if you walk past somebody at the Four Seasons and this and they say hello to you you get the feeling that they actually wanted to say hello to you it's not that somebody told them that you have to say hello to all the customers say hello to all the guests right you actually feel that they care now in their Lobby they have a coffee stand and uh one afternoon I went to buy a cup of coffee and there was

a barista by the name of Noah who was serving me Noah was fantastic he was friendly and fun and he was engaging with me and I had so much fun buying a cup of coffee I actually think I gave 100% tip right he was wonderful so as is my nature I asked Noah do you like your job and without skipping a beat Noah says I love my job and so I followed up I said what is it that the Four Seasons is doing that would make you say to me I love my job and without

skipping a beat Noah said throughout the day managers will walk past me and ask me how I'm doing if there's anything that I need to do my job better he said not just my manager any manager and then he said something magical he says I also work at Caesar's Palace and Caesar at Caesar's Palace the managers are trying to make sure we're doing everything right they catch us when we do things wrong he says when I go to work there I like to keep my head under the radar and just get through the day so

I can get my paycheck he says here at the 4 Seasons I feel I can be myself same person entirely a different experience from the from the customer who will engage with Noah so we in leadership are always criticizing the people we're always saying we got to get the right people on the bus I've got to fill my wrong my team I got to get the right people but the reality is it's not the people it's the leadership if we create the right environment we will get people like Noah at the Four Seasons if we

create the wrong environment we will get people like Noah at Caesar's Palace it's not the people and yet we're so quick to hire and fire you can't hire and fire your children if there's if your kids are struggling we don't say you got to see at school you're up for adoption so why is it that when somebody has performance problems at work why is it that our instinct is to say you're out we do not practice empathy what does empathy look like here's the lack of empathy this is normal in our business world you walk

into someone's office someone walks into our office and says your numbers have been down for the third quarter in a row you have to pick up your numbers otherwise I can't guarantee what the future will look like how inspired do you think that person is to come to work the next day here's what empathy looks like you walk into someone's office someone walks into your office and says your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row are you okay I'm worried about about you what's going on we all have performance issues maybe someone's

kid is sick maybe they're having problems in their marriage maybe one of their parents is dying we don't know what's going on in their lives and of course it will affect performance at work empathy is being concerned about the human being not just their output we have for some reason our work world has changed over the past 20 and 30 years we are suffering the side effect of business theories left over from the ' 80s and 99s and they are bad for people and they are bad for business let me give you an example the

concept of shareholder Supremacy was a theory proposed in the late 1970s it it was popularized in the ' 80s and '90s it is now standard form today you talk to any public company and you ask them their priority and they say maximize shareholder value really that's like a coach prioritizing the needs of the fans over the needs of the players how you going to build a winning team with that model but that's normal today we don't even perceive it as broken or damaged or wrong or outdated remember the ' 80s and '90s were boom years

with relative peace and a Kinder gentler Cold War nobody was practicing hiding under their desks in school anymore we are no longer in those times these are no longer boom years these are no longer peaceful times and those models can cannot work today here's another one Mass layoffs using someone's livelihood to balance the books right it's so normal in America today that we don't even understand how broken and how damaging it is not only to human beings but to business you know companies talk about how they want to build trust and cooperation and they announce

a round of layoffs do you know the quickest way to destroy trust and Destroy cooperation in a business literally in one day lay people off and everyone gets scared right can you imagine sending someone home to say honey I can no longer provide for our family because the company missed its arbitrary projections this year and forget about the people who lost their job think about the people who kept their jobs because every single decision a company makes is a piece of communication and the company the company has just communicated to everybody else this is not

a meritocracy we don't care how hard you work or how long you've worked here if we miss our numbers and you happen to fall on the wrong side of the spreadsheet I'm sorry we cannot guarantee employment in other words we come to work every day afraid and we're asking our youngest generation to work in environments where how would any of us ever stand up and admit I made a mistake we're cantly being told you have to be vulnerable leaders are vulnerable what does that even mean it doesn't mean you walk around crying I'm vulnerable right

no what vulnerability means is you create an environment in which someone feels safe enough to raise their hand and said I don't know what I'm doing you've given me a job and I haven't been trained to do it I need help I made a mistake I screwed something up I'm scared I'm worried all of these things no one would ever admit inside a company because it puts a Target on your head in case there's another round and so we keep it to ourselves and how can a company ever do well if nobody's ever willing to

admit they made a mistake that's scared or they don't know what they're doing and so we've literally created cultures in which every single day everybody comes to work and lie hide lies hides and fakes and we're asking our youngest generation to work and succeed and find themselves and build their confidence and overcome their addiction to technology and build strong relationships at work we're asking to do this and these are the environments we've created we keep saying to them you're the Future Leaders we're the leaders now we're in control what are we doing this is what

empathy [Music] means few of us can debate right that there's an increase in depression anxiety and suicide amongst young people I mean the statistics are alarming and so you have an entire generation that's growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations the other problem to compound it is we're growing up in a Facebook Instagram World in other words we're good at putting filters on things we're good at showing people that life is amazing even though I'm depressed all of our validation now comes from the number of likes the number of followers we have you have

an addiction and like all Addiction in time it'll destroy relationships it'll cost time and it'll cost money and it'll make your life worse you know the problem with addiction is addicts know that it's bad for them there are plenty of Alcoholics who know that what they're doing is unhealthy but they're addicted which is why they keep doing it I think many of us can admit that what we do is unhealthy and that it is addictive and we may be addicted the question we have to raise is what are the costs of the benefits that we

get from technology because there is always a cost to everything that we gain nothing is free we know that engagement with social media and our cell phones releases a chemical called dopamine that's why when you get a text feels good right so you know we've all had it where you're feeling a little bit down or feeling a little bit lonely and so you send out 10 texts to 10 friends you know hi hi hi hi cuz it feels good when you get a response right it's why we count the likes it's why we go back

10 times to see if and if it's going if our my Instagram is growing slower I would did I do something wrong do they not like me anymore right the the trauma for young kids to be unfriended because we know when you get it you get hit a dopamine which feels good it's why we like it it's why we keep going back dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes us feel good when we smoke when we drink and when we gamble in other words it's highly highly addictive we have age restrictions on smoking gambling

and alcohol and we have no age restrictions on social media and cell phones which is the equivalent of opening up the liquor cabinet and saying to our teenagers hey by the way this adolescence thing if it gets you down that's basically what happening you have an entire generation that has access to an addictive numbing chemical Cod dopamine through social media and cell phones as they're going through the high stress of adolescence why is this important almost every alcoholic discovered alcohol when they were teenagers when we're very very young the only approval we need is the

approval of our parents and as we go through adolesence we make this transition where we now need the approval of our PE very frustrating for a parent very important for us that allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the ler tribe right it's a highly highly stressful and anxious period of our lives and we're supposed to learn to rely on our friends some people quite by accident discover alcohol and numbing effects of dopamine to help them cope with the stresses and anxieties of adolescence unfortunately that becomes hardwired in their brain and for

the rest of their lives when they suffer significant stress they will not turn to a person they will turn to the bottle social stress Financial stress career stress that's pretty much the primary reasons why an alcoholic drinks what's happening is because we're allowing unfettered access to these dopamine producing devices and media basically it's becoming hardwired and what we're seeing is as they grow older too many kids don't know how to form deep meaningful relationship their words not mine they will admit that many of their friendships are superficial they will admit that their friends that they

don't count on their friends they don't rely on their friends they have fun with their friends but they also know that their friends will cancel on them if something better comes along deep meaningful relationships are not there because they never practice the skill set and worse they don't have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress so when significant stress starts to show up in their lives they're not turning to a person they're turning to a device they're turning to social media they're turning to these things which offer temporary relief we know the science is clear

we know that people who spend more time on Facebook suffer higher rates of than people who spend less time on Facebook right these things balanced alcohol is not bad too much alcohol is bad gambling is fun too much gambling is dangerous right there's nothing wrong with social media and cell phones it's the imbalance right if you're sitting at dinner with your friend and you're texting somebody who's not there that's a problem that's an addiction if you're sitting in a meeting with people you're supposed to be listening to and speaking and you put your phone on

the table face up or face down I don't care that sends a subconscious message to the room that you're not just you're just not that important to me that's what happens and the fact that you cannot put it away is because you are addicted right if you wake up and you check your phone before you say good morning to your girlfriend boyfriend or spouse you have an addiction and like all Addiction in time it'll destroy relationships it'll cost time and it'll cost money and it'll make your life worse so you have a generation growing up

with lower self-esteem that doesn't have the coping mechanisms to do with strace stress now you add in the sense of impatience right they've grown up in a world of instant gratification you want to buy something you go on Amazon it arrives the next day you want to watch a movie log on and watch a movie you don't check movie times you want to watch a TV show binge you don't even have to wait week to week to week I know people who Skip Seasons just so they can binge at the end of the season instant

gratification everything you want you can have instantaneous everything you want instant gratification except job satisfaction and strength of relationships there ain't no app for that they are slow Meandering uncomfortable messy processor and so what this Young Generation needs to learn is patience that some things that really really matter like love or job fulfillment Joy love of Life self-confidence a skill set any of these things all of these things take time sometimes you can expedite pieces of it but the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult and if you don't ask for help and learn

that skill set you will fall off the mountain or you will the worst case scenario and we're already seeing it we're seeing an increase in this generation we're seeing an increase in accidental deaths due to drug overdoses we're seeing more and more kids drop out of school or take leaves of absence due to depression unheard of this is really bad those are all bad cases the best case scenario is you'll have an entire population growing up and going through life and just never really finding Joy they'll never really find deep deep fulfillment in work or

in life they'll just fine how's your job fine the same as yesterday how's your relationship it's fine like that's the best case scenario which leads me to the the fourth point which is environment which is we're taking this amazing group of young fantastic kids who had just dealt a bad hand it's no fault of their own and we put them in corporate environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids that aren't helping them overcome the challenges of a digital world and finding more balance that isn't helping them overcome the need

to have instant gratification and teach teach them the joys and impact and the Fulfillment you get from working hard over on something for a long time that cannot be done in a month or even in a year there should be no cell phones in conference rooms none zero and I don't mean the kind of like sitting outside waiting to text I mean like when you're sitting and waiting for a meeting to start nobody go this is what we all do we all sit here and wait for the meeting to start meeting starting okay we start

the meeting no that's not how relationships are formed remember we talked about it's the little things relationships are formed this way we're waiting for a meeting to start and we go how's your dad I heard he was in the hospital oh he's really good thanks for asking he's actually at home now oh I'm really glad that was really amazing I know it was really scary for that's how you form relationship hey did you ever get that report done oh my God no I didn't I'll help you out I totally I'll can I help you out

with that really that's how trust forms trust doesn't form at an event in a day even bad times don't form trust immediately it's the slow steady consistency and we have to create mechanisms where we allow for those little uous interactions to happen when you're out for dinner with your friends like I I do this with my friends when we're going out for dinner and we're leaving together we'll leave our cell phones at home who are we calling maybe one of us will bring a phone in case we need to pull an Uber we'll take one

phone and so it's like an alcoholic the reason you take the alcohol out of the house we is because we cannot trust our willpower we're just not strong enough but when you remove the Temptation it actually makes it a lot easier and so when you just say don't check your phone people literally will go like this but if you don't have the phone you just kind of enjoy eny the world and that's where ideas happen the constant constant constant engagement is not where you have Innovation and ideas ideas happen when our minds wonder and we

go and you see something I bet they could do that that's called Innovation right but we're taking away all those little moments none of us should charge our phones by our beds we should be charging our phones in the living rooms remove the Temptation you wake up in the middle of the night cuz you can't sleep you won't check your phone which makes it worse but if it's in the living room it's relaxed it's fine but it's my alarm clock buy an alarm clock they cost $8 so I think we cannot ignore these factors of

which one of them of course has to be the imbalance of social media and cell phones in our lives I'm not against it I'm against the amount of it right that that we can't go for dinner with a friend and put our phone in airplane mode for an hour and a half and just be present with our friends and so how do we combat this imbalance you do not get to say when you're being present you are present when somebody else says you are and the reason we meditate for example is because we learn things

like calm and quiet and focus and when you meditate you have a thought and you learn to label that thought and put it out of your head and deal with it later so that when you're with a friend and they're talking you're not thinking about your next thought you put your thought aside and you listen entirely to what they're saying you focus on one thing which is them and you are not present until your friend at the end end of the conversation says to you thank you for listening I feel heard thank you for being

present with me we are who we are like I said we're fully formed by the experiences we have when we're young you know at a pretty young age and now the opportunity life presents us is to make decisions that either Keeps Us in balance with who we really are or not and I think one of the reasons most of us feel discomfort or don't feel ourselves or don't know who we are is because we're making decisions that are inconsistent with that true cause with that why right we look for ways to distance our ourselves from

the impact of our decisions we say things like it's what you got to do to get ahead it's what my boss wants um everyone's doing it it's the system I don't have a choice right and there are ways we can disassociate our responsibility so you raise the case of individual athletes who become Champions and then suffer depression it's a fairly common story you hear this from Olympians you know Michael Phelps becomes the most meddled Olympian of all time immed medely suffers depression Andre Agy becomes the most storied you know tennis player of all time immediately

becomes depressed and what I've learned from talking to some of these these particularly athletes but I think it happens in the business world as well which is from a very young age they set themselves a goal that in my words would be a very selfish goal I want to be the best at X the best tennis player the best golfer the best whatever and you know the way Olympians put it which I get a kick out of is I want to win the Olympics like well no one wins the Olympic Olympics you can be a

winner in your sport and and their entire lives from pretty young ages every decision they're making is to help them Advance this finite goal and all of their relationships are can you help me achieve my goal and if you can no longer help me achieve my goal I don't need you anymore as a coach or even a friend and there's huge sacrifices missing of birthdays missing of Christmases you know missing of major life events because I have to practice ice so I can achieve my goal and when they get interviewed on the news you know

or at the Olympics or whatever you know why do you do it they will say well I'm doing it to inspire the little kids which is complete you know if you look at all of their uh vision boards from when they were younger pictures of podiums and medals and money and Lamborghinis not a single little child on there of the people you're doing it for it's it's just a Lucky Strike extra I mean absolutely you do Inspire children but that's not the reason you did it you just got that you know like I said it's

sort of it's a twofer and and then when they achieve or don't achieve this thing and then can no longer compete for it they've set their entire path in order relationships on this one these finite selfish goals and so when it's complete they realize they don't really have a lot of friends around them they don't really have a lot of close relationships they don't really even have a sense of purpose because they've been spent the past 20 years or so with one purpose which was this finite goal which now has run out and so they're

very purpose lesss and I see this in Broadway performers who set their whole life to be on the west end or be on Broadway every class every tap dancing class every singing class they make it they get there and then depression or at least malaise or senior executive same thing if I just if I just make a million dollars you know if I just become a millionaire then I'll feel and the problem with all of those things is as I said before they are selfish uh it is your goal for your reasons which is not

fulfilling for any Social Animal for any human being you know our sense of joy and fulfillment and love and purpose comes from our ability to serve another human being have a child tell me how your life changes fall in love tell me how your life changes you know think about all the stupid things irrational things we've done for love we get on planes and travel around the world just to say I love you you know we do ridiculous things and it all feels worth it and the sacrifices we make for a child all feel worth

it but these are no longer for us and these things will live on beyond our own lives they are not finite they are infinite and there's nothing wrong with Personal Achievement there's nothing wrong with setting goals but it has to be in the context of something even bigger and to see one's life as a Continuum rather than than a than an event is much healthier I'm not a huge fan of the the term self-improvement but I do like the idea of awareness self-awareness you know we all live with blind spots we all live with missing

gaps and pieces of information which will by the way last for the rest of our lives and there are some people who choose to live a life where living with those gaps is acceptable and they never fill them in and we would say that they remain stagnant and arguably either mentally or physically unhealthy you know getting unhealthier as they get older you know for someone for anyone who who wants to be a better version of themselves a more aware version of themselves you we I seek out information and that comes in all kinds of forms

right it can be in a relationship um so for example I went and took a listening class I was dating someone and she accused me of being a bad listener and I was like you do know what I do for a living right like I'm a really good listener so I don't know what you're talking about you know and then I took this listening class turns out I'm an absolutely brilliant listener with people who I'll never see again for the rest of my life but amongst my friends and family appalling so I had this basic

skill set that I never applied with the people closest to me and gave myself an out because quote unquote I knew how to listen and so I realized I was a terrible listener this was a blind spot this was a gap and having somebody love me tell me that that didn't work didn't believe them until you know this objective Outsider or at least I just took this class and came to this realization that was brilliant that awareness of the blind spot and the awareness of the skills that I need to be a better brother son

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

world impacts them their mental health their physical health their ability to maintain relationships and nurse relationships for those who want to show up better in the lives of others which is I see being healthy as a service to others but I think we've neglected for decades the socialness of of our animal and social media and cell phones and and the ubiquity of those technologies have complicated our ability to be human and I started to realize we've confused things here which is we don't get to decide when we're present we get to practice being present and

so for anyone who's ever practiced meditation there are absolutely benefits to us without a doubt those are important mental and physical health benefits of meditation and mindfulness and we should practice those for sure but there's also that what I think is the primary reason some would consider secondary reason which is if you practice meditation for example you learn to focus on one thing your Mantra a sound your breath whatever it is you learn to you don't think of nothing you think of one thing focus on one thing right and if something interrupts that thing you

have a thought did I leave the washing machine on you label it a thought and you push it out of your head and you say I'll deal with it later and that's the whole idea it's total focus and the ability to put your thoughts out of your head to stay focused on this one thing now think about when you're sitting listening with a friend who's going through a hard time are you listening are you waiting for your turn to speak the whole meditation practice that you've been doing is now valuable in this moment where you

are focused entirely on what they're saying to you every distraction every Screech of a car tire outside everybody who's talking around you you don't hear any of it you only hear what they're saying to you you're entirely focused on what they're saying to you and when you have your own thoughts of advice you'd like to give or things you want to tell them oh my God me too that happened to me as well right you say nope that's not important in this moment and you put it out of your head and deal with it later

and at the end of that conversation your friend will say thank you I feel heard or thank you for being there for me or thank you for holding space for me or thank you for listening and those are all indications that congratulations you've been present for another and I think what gives our lives purpose is not to wake up every morning to learn meditation so that we can be present for ourselves though that is valuable what gives our lives purpose is to do these things for another there's nothing wrong with doing things and enjoying the

benefit of those things Yourself by all means but the sense of the deep feeling sense of purpose and meaning to one's life or to one's work only comes when those things are for another and in my view primarily for another where our benefit is secondary and that's where the joy and love of business relationships friendships come from there's a great irony in it in all of this which is to sacrifice for another really is the most beautiful thing we can ever do I mean that's kind of what love is it's sacrificing for another and all

of these things learning to be a better Communicator learning mindfulness and meditation being in shape if you can translate those things in for another all of those things start to have a higher purpose