Simon Sinek | How to Start a Successful Movement

I wondered if you were going to say that because it's like a phenomenon and I love that you just yeah how did myself that's really good your friends are going to sing it um you sing it out Oh like to the point where my friends like are thinking shut up now hi I'm kelcie Humphries and this is the pursuit where I help you in your journey your hustle and your climb to be your best self and put out your best work after all I'm still hustling for that two guys so I sit down and interview today's most successful celebrities executives and entrepreneurs and I break down success for the rest of us let's dive into this episode with simon Sinek if you aren't familiar with simon Synnex name you're probably familiar with his first book and the movement he created called start with why you may also recognize his face from the same TED talk which has been viewed over 28 million times he is the New York Times bestselling author of leaders eat last and he is an international sought-after speaker not just spreading an idea but leading a crusade his refreshing views on business and leadership have attracted meetings and speaking engagements with organizations like NBC 3m Costco Ernst and Young and he's addressed the United Nations the United States Congress and the senior leadership of the United States Air Force Marine Corps and Army we know why he created this movement but I wanted to learn how so I sat down and asked him all about how to create a movement at the Ernst & Young offices in New York City this is a dream come true for me I read your book years ago this is so cool so thank you so much thanks for having me and I know my audience is freaking out everyone loves start with why and could not believe that I got to sit and talk with you today so I want to start though back at the beginning because I listen to a lot of interviews and everyone starts kind of at the three-month of depression you've been in your business for a few years but I would like to hold the phone and say that you had a you know you went out on your own and beat the odds so I'd like to talk about that for a little bit first because you did eventually make a decision to go out on your own and you grew your business and you made it past the three-year point so what do you think were some of the keys to the success of that at the beginning um I think I mean I'm only successful because of other people I mean in the early days when I just started my business I was pretty much convinced it was me and everyone else was helping me out you know but I can tell you with hindsight that the reason my business took a nosedive because my whole trajectory changed the first three years of my business were fun and exciting and we sort of beat the statistic that you know the overwhelming number was supposed to go to business and I didn't and my fourth year was very difficult my fourth year is very different and that's where you know when you're running on force of personality where you you're chief cook and bottle washer you're making every sales call you're making you're doing the the product you're making every you're offering the service you're doing everything at some point you reach a level where especially if you survive for a few years that you now have to ask other people for help so you have to hire people right and the stress of letting go when or trying to do everything which is demoralizing for people who you bring on and then needing structure you know what is the actual structure of the business it's not just you doing everything and that's where I failed I was terrible at structure I continue to be terrible in structure and and really became very very difficult for me to grow my business became very very stressful and I really hit a dark patch and that's when I learned the most valuable lesson I think of my career which is I don't have to know all the answers and when I don't I don't have to pretend that I do hmm and a willingness to admit that I needed help that I didn't know I knew this but I didn't know that allowed me to seek help and accept it when I was offered and I realize I'm we're all surrounded by people who are plenty willing to help us but because so many of us spend so much of our time lying hiding and faking people don't offer us their help because they just don't think we need it yeah because we've presented ourselves in this picture that we're good to go and so we leave ourselves by ourselves it's our own fault and so when I was able to stop lying hiding and faking and was able to say really good at this really bad at that and it was a depressing thing it was just like an admission people came up oh love it go oh my I could totally help you with that and that's when my real trajectory took off was when I realized that it's it's a team sport and I'm I have to be really good at the thing that I'm good at and I have to be willing to help those succeed what they're good at and allow others to help me succeed as well at what I'm good at and so it's that wonderful wonderful sort of relationship that we all have each other where we commit ourselves to seeing each other succeed that is the reason I find myself where I am today Wow so at that point you just you discovered that businesses all function with three things what we do how we do it and why we do it yeah so this started this whole wide phenomenon that you launched but was that like you sitting there writing on a napkin was this you decide to start reading books I mean what how did it start you know it always sounds like it's an invention or like there was some sort of revolution and you know you sort of you hit your head on the bathtub and there you have that it's not like that these ideas like all good ideas are evolutionary and I was tinkering with I I was already tinkering with something that looked like the Golden Circle simply to explain why some marketing worked and some marketing didn't and it was really good to help me sort of start a PowerPoint presentation but the theory was basically there and it didn't you know as I learned more I started to learn about the biology of human decision-making and that set off a spark that oh my goodness this is much bigger than marketing this is our lives this is our careers this is biology this is how we make decisions that's when I realize the power of what I had sitting on the shelf and then I applied the scientific sort of methodology which is I had this theory let's test it let's wait for the theory to fail and so people come to me and say will this work in you know big business I'm like I don't know let's try will it work in this industry I don't know let's try it will it work in politics I don't know let's try and it kept working and that's when I realized it was really something very very special so people start asking you to share help them figure out their why it gets bigger and bigger was when did you decide alright I've got to sit and write this down yeah and do you consider yourself a writer I mean did you were you already writing lots of things and tell us about your process not a writer never imagined being a writer never fantasized about being a writer but as I said other people who believed what I believed I got very very very good at talking about what I believed and stopped completely talking about what I did people come to say what do you do and I wouldn't say what I did I would tell them what I believe and literally I started practicing the things that I eventually wrote about which is I started with why and when you do that it attracts people who believe what you believe and so the way the book came about is a friend of mine who knew what I believed and that was sharing my ideas with her I said you have to write this down and I shrugged and she said I'll introduce you to an agent and I shrugged and then I had an agent and somebody else said I wanted to use it to an editor friend I had and I was trying to said okay and the editor talked to me he said I wanted you to a publisher so my meeting with the publisher actually wasn't set up by my agent and I ended up having a 29 minute meeting with Adrian Zack Heim who's the god of business publishing he's the original publisher from good to great he came up with the title and everything Wow and I'm here in this 29 minute meeting with him and three days later they offered me a book deal and I literally I I never presented myself as anything that I was not and I just would tell people what I believed and I and what I imagined the world could be based on this little idea and people who believe oh I believe wanted a help and so he helped me by offering me the opportunity to to share my idea at a much broader scale he absolutely took a bet on me I was an unknown personality I didn't have much of a platform which is what they was tell you need and he took a bet Wow so I'm very very very lucky and very very grateful to him for that bet and I mean a great bet to take obviously I mean it's just it's worldwide I mean anyone I feel like I haven't come across anyone who hasn't heard of it or doesn't know everybody knows one of the most popular TED talks of all time I mean just congratulations thank you but so what's interesting is you're why tell everyone your why to inspire people to do the things that inspire them so together we can change world some don't you love it but I and what about people who are like that's great to have a why but like we have to do work for example there's a lot of grunt work there's jobs that anyone would hate doing what about what what do you say to them so if you there's two questions there I don't believe the Y is the end-all be-all okay when I talk about the Golden Circle there were three levels to it what we do how we doing and why we do it right the reason I talk about the why is because that's the piece that's always missing because everybody knows what they do some people know how they do it the things that you think make you stand out from the competition you're differentiating value proposition whatever you want to call it but very very few people if ever think about or talk about why they do what they do and my point was is that you cannot achieve or find long term success or fulfillment unless all three pieces are there so of course of course the heavy lifting happens if you all you have is why and no work then you live on a hippie commune it's everything's kumbaya and you don't get any work done which is also very unfulfilled after some time and no if all you do is what and how then you have a job rather than a calling you know it's it is grunt work as opposed to something that matters why contextualizes the importance of all of that hard lifting you know if you work very very hard for something you hate or don't believe in it's called stress if you work very very hard for something you do believe in or love it's called passion and that's what the why does it fuels it gives you the energy to get all that heavy lifting done now you said something else they're just you said there are just jobs people don't like or something today there are some jobs no one would like yeah that's just not true I think that we have this sort of very ethnocentric sense of our own like well clearly people like things like working in tech and how can anybody like working as a janitor or something and it's completely nonsense it's really judgmental actually of us to even think that way because again I ask awesome because I know because I know so many high tech people and bankers and white-collar and you know movie business and glamour glamour who hate their lives hate their jobs hate their colleagues hate their bosses and need pills to sleep okay I know plenty of them there's superficial Glamour's wonderful lives and I know plenty of people who work in factories with their hands and they stand at a machine all day and are grateful for the company they work for and they love their colleagues and they feel cared for and they love coming to work because they feel like they're contributing to something bigger than themselves it has nothing to do with the work they do it has to do with the reason they come to work that's being why it started a movement obviously but let's get back to you so you start to see I'm assuming that it's catching on like wildfire and you get this book deal and now people want you to speak all the time did you change your business model or sell your old business or did you just transition because you were doing marketing consultant yeah so the marketing business happened three years prior so I had the marketing business lost my passion for what I was doing that crisis mm-hmm was the spark that helped me find this thing called the why and then define the Golden Circle and I would fell in love with this idea and would literally go to my friends apartments and give talks to their friends about this thing called the why and I would help people find their why for a hundred bucks on the side that's how it began okay and people just kept in kept asking me to speak and I kept saying yes so I was actually giving the talk for about three years before any book or TED talk and that's when I abandoned my marketing business because I realized when I realized I could make a living doing this that people will pay me to speak and will also invite me to come and consult I guess but as it started to gain popularity then the question was what do I want to do and I made the conscious decision not to build a consultancy because I didn't want for me spreading the message is much more important so I sort of took on the the identity of sort of a modern-day preacher I had a purpose I had a cause I had a calling I had a something I believed in that I was going to preach I was going to share it I was in a stand on my bully pulpit and I was going to look for followers to help me spread this spread this gospel I mean that's really that the angle I took and that's what we've done and the reason the message is spread is because that's what we decided we would do I could have become a consultant and made a nice little nest egg but this seemed like the the right thing to do I'd rather more people find a job they love and feel inspired when they wake up every day not just a few people like to help so when you're that passionate and that committed was it I feel like it would be interesting or maybe challenging or difficult to bring on team members how so well because it's like your baby I mean everyone's business is their baby so a lot of people have questions about hiring but what what were your what's your advice for starting to build a team and I think the difference between an entrepreneur who cannot achieve scale which is different from success you can make a ton of money but that's not scale it's just money right versus being able to cross that little chasm and find that tipping point where it can really gain scale is the ability to let go you know I'd been chief cook and bottle washer I had done every job and so when I started needing help because I could no longer do every job I didn't have the time or the energy I wanted to tell everybody how I used to do it and have them do it that way that's that's that's about like assigning tasks that's not a sending responsibility that's not letting go and it was a slow uncomfortable process it's not like tomorrow morning I'm just going to let go you know it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't work that right it's a very uncomfortable process I assume you use the analogy of this is your baby I assume it's something like when your kids grow up and leave the house or when they become old enough to drive and they gain some independence like we'd like to tell them what to do what to eat when to go to bed when to have a shower but you kind of lose that and right some parents struggle with that and it creates tension in the relationship with their kids and some parents slowly embrace that their kids are adults and and it's the same kind of transition where you people come on and you realize that they care and that they're smart and that they're good at what they do and that they want to learn and so they want to do things they've never done before also they don't have to be experts and everything and you let go a little bit they do an amazing job and you let go and amazing a little bit late and then they you let go a little bit and they screw it all up and you say okay try again and the more they feel that you care about their success the more I started to feel um that I cared about the success of those around me it became very easy for me to simply say just take care of this and whatever happens is fine in every decision you make I love you know yeah which this is kind of easily segwaying us into your next book but before we go there I was listening to I'm sure you're familiar with Liz Gilbert and I was listening to her in an interview and she was talking about after the massive success of Eat Pray Love kind of like a little bit of an identity crisis you know did you have that after what became I mean your book became what it is so it's funny you bring up Elizabeth Gilbert because her TED talk actually helped me not go through that so people would come up to me and say how are you gonna do another TED talk as successful as the first one and the answer was I'm not that was an accident I won the lottery like I won the lottery and I can't plan to win the lottery again like me that's not how it works and the success of start with Y again like I can't plan that like there's nothing you can't plan for something that was an accident so I had actually completely divorced myself of any notion that I had to produce something that was better or more successful than the first work and so when I set out to write leaders eat last the only goal was to share every lesson that I'd been learning on the topic of trust and cooperation and do the best job I can of communicating those ideas with literally no concern or thought whether it would be more successful than the first one I didn't mind I didn't care and I feel that way about all my work which is you know the Y has sort of gone off and done its own thing and and it's like my kid leaving the house only just so proud so tell us just about your actual writing process do you sit in a room for a certain chunk every day or you know how do you actually get the book done a very very envious of writers with discipline you know you treat it like a job from 9:00 to 5:00 or set a goal every day of writing you know whatever a thousand words for 2,000 words and they do that I that's not my process my process is best defined as days of guilt and self-loathing punctuated by hours of your brilliance and the problem is I don't know when those hours will strike and so I will sit at home and watch TV and hate myself for not getting any work done and and I won't go out for dinner in case one of these things strikes and then I sit at home and watch TV and say I should have gone out for dinner then I see my friends and then the next night I got for dinner and then I have an idea and I'm riding on tablecloths and it's it's more of a creative mad process than it is a disciplined process I feel like a lot of people can relate to that a lot of writers probably yeah I'm okay with it like I don't pretend that I have the discipline I don't like sit at a desk and stare at a screen or write I can't write you know some writers they can write 2,000 words a day even if it's junk I can't do that if I'm writing I have to like what I'm writing and if I don't like what I'm writing then I stopped writing interesting now your second book readers eat last if you guys haven't heard the story that prompted that you told it so brilliantly to marie forleo so I don't want to take time on that today but I'll link it you guys go watch it because I was like on the edge of my seats of this whole your whole journey through Afghanistan and just take note of the way he tells stories okay for anybody who's the speaker or you're working on your writing because I was just riveted so then after in that book I kind of want you to just touch on what you feel like our leadership challenges for people who are still very small so five employees ten employees because a lot of times you know they're growing so fast they're trying to keep up there's no culture to speak of there's nothing what's your advice to them so when we're junior or when we're solo we only really have to be good at whatever it is we claim we're offering like that's pretty much it you know and as you gain seniority or as you have to bring on more people you have to go through a transition you don't have a choice some people make it quickly something we make it slowly and some people will never make it at all which is you now go through the transition where you're no longer responsible for the job you're now responsible for the people who are responsible for the job right so I love talking to CEOs and say you know what's your priority is a my customer I'm like you haven't talked to a customer in 10 years yeah you're not responsible of the customer you're responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer you know there's not a senior exec on the planet that's responsible for the results zero they're responsible for the people who responsible for the results and so we work so hard and get advanced degrees on how to do the job but really there's very little out there to train us to do the job of leadership which is to let go of the result and take care of the people who are responsible with results now when you have a small business you actually have to do both where you do have responsibility for the job because you're still in the game but now you also have responsibility for people and their and their jobs and so you have to dance that line and if you do too much of one then the thing collapses and if you do too much of the other then you're you're a micromanager and everybody wants you out of their way and everybody eights coming to work for you and the thing collapses and so you really have to find that balance and as the organization grows what you've been doing is practicing and as the organization grows and you stop doing the jobs you used to do you not take care of the people who do the jobs so you know you become a much better leader but it's a it's a process it's a transition it's an education it's not an event it's not like today I'm a leader I hired you know I've got five people I'm a leader it's nothing work that way so but it takes unbelievable it takes a lot of hard work it takes a lot of energy leadership is the most it is more difficult in the business right because you can back plan something or you can figure out how to fill your pipeline but how you deal with the whims and insecurities and egos and ambitions of a human being right who no matter how great they are they have a fight with their spouse or there's a family tragedy or they didn't get enough sleep and everything's horrible right you know like they come to work with all of that stress and anxiety and human beings are messy it's I wish it were so neat and so the leadership is really really hard work and I equate leadership to it's like everyone to parenting where everyone on the planet has the capacity to be a parent it doesn't mean everybody should be a parent and it doesn't mean everybody wants to be a parent leadership is the same everybody has the capacity to be a leader doesn't mean that everybody wants to be a leader and it doesn't mean that everybody should be a leader so if you don't want to be a parent don't have kids if you don't want to be a leader then don't push your career to have people report to you because you then don't have a choice like if you accidentally have a kid congratulations you are now a parent right yep you know so if you find yourself in a leadership position you either give it up to somebody else and say and I know plenty of entrepreneurs who do that they bring in presidents to run their companies and they like to be the creative director they like to be in the weeds because they're good at it they don't want to run the organization they don't want to lead the people right it's hard mm-hmm and you stop getting to do the stuff that you like doing anyway you have to like leadership so it's an education and the best leaders I know like truly remarkable leaders who some of them have achieved amazing things in the command unbelievable love and loyalty from their people they get all the theories that I talked about they get it they do it I learn from them none of them consider themselves experts they all consider themselves students and when anybody says to you you know I'm an expert at this I think I know what I'm doing run run run right yeah it's the ones who understand that every everyday as a leader is an education and so all the leaders I know talk about leadership like we sit down and we talk about it like I want to hear what they're doing that when you're what I'm doing yeah like we talk about it because we're learning right I may be in a more advanced student than some but I'm still a student right and so when you have that perspective you show up every single day as a student you're the students mind the students mentality and so you're constantly like you watch the news or you watch a press conference or you meet someone and you're constantly paying attention to how they answered something or how they did something agreeing and disagreeing because you're in student mode if you're an expert mode you just ignore the world around you so all the best leaders I know see it as a constant every day education and a daily practice student mode I like that student mode so now you are a leader and you have a team play one on TV what is the average day like for simon Sinek oh i wish i had an average day that's no I don't I don't have an average day my days or I I like to say that I want one of the things I love my job is I don't know what I do every Monday I don't really have a sense of routine there are lots of things that I have to do and sometimes things go in spurts so sometimes I'm on the road sometimes I'm working directly with organizations or leaders when they'll be zorkin it within those organizations sometimes I'm writing I have a strategic partnership with EU I understand young where they're taking my IP and we're developing it into products and services so we can give it to more people so that they can implement it more easily and we're I'm actually a part of something that they do every year called sgf which in the entrepreneur world that's very very well known I love that kind of stuff so I have responsibilities there as well we're developing stuff together which is fun so there's no there's no there's no routine but like anybody else my struggles are the same that sometimes I have I have what I call very productively unproductive days where there's something I have to get done and I get done 15 other things but not the thing right I'm the same do you have any daily rituals or habits that you think have helped in your success I mean as I said before I'm very good about asking for help of bouncing ideas of someone you know even if I'm you know rarely 100% sure about but even if I'm 90% sure about something I'll call up somebody on my team be like so this is what's happened this is what I'm thinking of doing and sometimes just me getting to say it out loud is like okay no that's actually a bad idea yeah you know so I'm very good about using sounding boards even for things that I'm fairly confident about so I do that a lot it's the basics I think you got to get a good night's sleep I think you you got to exercise you know if you don't if you think one of the big things I changed in my life was I prioritized exercise so exercise for me goes in my schedule like a meeting and too many of us treat exercise as something malleable or flexible where oh my god I have this amazing opportunity to meet with this person I'll move my gym time I don't like my gym time is in my schedule and if somebody says can I meet you at 3 o'clock or or later you know six o'clock whatever whenever I put it in sometimes in the middle today I go I'm sorry I'm busy that time they'd have to know what I'm doing right I'm busy so can we do it tomorrow yeah and I'm really my I really started things started to may get a lot easier for me when I prioritized my body and my health equally as my my my work so that's a big one and I'm really good about separating from my telephone and from from email my phone doesn't go busy being buzzed beep for every notification I keep my phone ringer off almost all the time I don't know when I get emails I'll check later like it doesn't my email alert is actually turned off so the only way I find out if I got an email is if I go check my phone won't buzz and that's on purpose because I don't want to Pavlovian response you know somebody hit reply all and I got buzzed I go like this and exactly and it didn't even matter and I interrupted something that I actually was focused on and I broke that concentration yeah I'm really good about putting my phone away and working not having it on the desk I'm really good about going out with my friends or even for meetings not putting the phone on the desk not putting the phone on the table engaging with somebody fully and it's that practice where people are much more likely to want to help you if they feel that you do something as simple as look in the eye and give them your full attention as opposed to one of these deals uh-huh you're totally or my favorite one is the phone rings they go I'm not going to get this it's like oh you're so magnetic yeah so so I'm really good at prioritizing health I don't believe in pulling all-nighters I just don't believe in it the quality of the work can't be that good anyway you know 4 o'clock in the morning I'd rather get at least some sleep and then wake up early and work you know and and and really prioritizing the relationships I have with other people whether it's whether it's a first-time meeting or an old friend I'm very good about putting my phone away do you feel like you had to give anything up to serve this giant movement I've given up a lot and always consciously it none of the decisions were made by accident um you know when you when I made the decision that I was going to spread this message I knew that it would come as a sacrifice to my my personal life I knew that I knew that going in you know when you're always on the road going on a date and goes great and you go oh my god I had so much fun are you free in six weeks yeah you're on your undateable I there was a sacrifice there I knew that and there was a point at which I was sacrificing my health a fix that one but yeah there were sacrifices I've made I regret none of them you know you make value judgments and you can pick one you know you can't have it all yeah and so if you're going to choose this you can have to give up that so if you want more time you might have to give up some of the money if you want more money then you're gonna have to give up some of the time like you know yeah it's it's not always that easy so and sometimes I play with a juggle with those you know looking back what's the best part and the worst part of your journey so far well the best part is the journey I mean this is the most exciting amazing wonderful thing that I've ever done it my life is surreal there's not a single thing that I'm doing or have done that I could have imagined that I would do I'm grateful for every day and when everybody says oh my god you've done so much my answer has been the same for the past ten years which is it's just the tip of the iceberg and I'm I'm trying to change the way in which business is run I'm trying to undo all of the theories that were popularized in the 80s and 90s you know shareholder supremacy putting the interests of an external constituent ahead of the people inside your company that's like a coach prioritizing the the desires of the fans over the desires of the players that's what that is well we have to sell tickets sure destroy your team and appease a fan for a year or two with a couple promotions right so that's what shareholder supremacy is that was a theory that was proposed in late 1970s the use of mass layoffs to balance the books we're not talking life-and-death situations here you know balancing the books for the year you know that was a that did not exist in the United States prior to the 1980s yeah so they have all of these theories rank and yank terrible terrible destroys the inside of a corporate culture or pitting people against each other I get I like to get my people to come against each other no no compete with not competing against you know there's all of these theories that were popularized in the 80s and 90s all in the name of selfish desires that have really done long-term damage to our economy to the way we feel about our jobs the way we feel about each other the way you feel about ourselves depression is massively on the rise in our company if any company goes look at their that without what they're spending on health care you know from you know they can companies can see what drugs they're buying in their health care plans you'll see that there is a precipitous rise in can you have a precipitous rise exponential rise in in depression drugs in fact it's the number one thing that we're treating in companies so I'm trying to completely undo an entire philosophy of how we do business that is the norm in the United States and other places in the world like we don't even think that anything is bad when layouts are no they announced layoffs it's awful right so no matter how much I've accomplished I stand at the foot of my of the mountain oh my god oh my god I'm so much more to do yeah and I love that I guess the worst part is that what is the worst part I don't know I mean I have bad days and but that's not I mean like you get through those and I have days where I think I can't do it but you get through those and I don't know it's pretty it's pretty cool yeah that's an awesome answer I don't know yeah I'm sorry I wish I had something so if you had to give what your number one piece of advice for someone who is has a message and they're trying to spread it to the world what's your number one piece of advice for them so spread it like what are you waiting for do it you know I get this question sometimes you know I want to be a public speaker how do I start speak I don't know you know like it's not about the problem is are you speaking because you have a message to spread are you speaking because you want to be on Ted or become famous or get paid lots of money to stand on the stage like what's your motivation like if your motivation is to be on Ted or be famous I got nothing I have no idea how you do that right but if you have a message to spread the rule is talk to anyone who will listen remember I started is talking for free in the living rooms of my friends that's how I started yeah and somebody said will you come to my company and they went gay and they paid me a couple hundred bucks you know and the first time somebody ever offered me any sort of real money I didn't realize this was an industry that I could accept the money so I gave it to charity like they gave me a big check you know that's what I thought you did right so I didn't realize I could make a living so I even today I don't define myself as a speaker I speak and if I stop speaking I still have an identity in other words my identity comes from my Y my identity comes from my message my identity comes from the thing that I want to talk about that I want to write about I'm an author technically because I happen to written a couple of books but do I cease to have an identity because I if I never write another book again what if I never give another speech what happens my identity I'm fine so I've never wanted to be a speaker or an author I just want to spread a message and I am completely agnostic as to how I spread that message right so if you want to do these things then you have to wake up to do that thing not to be someone or be that thing you know so the question is what is the message you're trying to spread and if you believe DES playing that message your passion will show through and if your passion shows through because you believe desperately in that message people will invite you because they're attracted to your passion and they like your message and if your practice and you become clearer and more articulate and how you explain your ideas and other people go I understand I understand so clearly I can tell someone your idea without you in the room then what happens to is your message starts to spread without you yeah and then down somebody calls you up and says will you come and deliver your message that I've heard about over here and you go I would love to thank you and the thing grows we'll be back in just a second with fast facts man there's so much we can learn from that interview but here are my keys to success from my interview with simon Sinek number one be honest with yourself and CENTAC with others he had to realize what he was good at and what he wasn't good at he says once he started to get honest and just spread his message with others things started to take off he didn't try to build a platform or become an author he just started to share his ideas and focus on what he was good at number two be patient and persistent cynic started really small sharing his message in friends apartments for a hundred bucks on the side he just started sharing his message and he says if you want to create a movement just get up and start sharing your message but of course you have to consider why you want to start a movement and realize that it takes a lot of time and sacrifice he gave up a lot in his personal life in order to spread this message so quickly and so powerfully number three be passionate focused and passion focused again we have to talk about why if we're talking about simon Sinek he literally started practicing the things he wrote about he would introduce himself by talking about what he believed in instead of what he did he says if you just start sharing and practice how to share your passion clearly other people will start to get on board and it will begin to grow number four be willing to let go and keep learning he says that the entrepreneurs that reach a tipping point realized that they have to let go and truly delegate and be able to tell their team members that they can make their own decisions and that they'll be fine with the decisions that they make and part of letting go is admitting you don't have all the answers he says that the best leaders he knows are constantly in student mode and that learning is a daily practice for them number five be practical be present and stay grateful he says to focus on the simple things when it comes to your health like diet exercise getting a lot of sleep then he says focus on being present he puts away his phone he engages with people and lastly he called himself lucky multiple times even though he worked for three years on his idea before starting to get any sort of traction with his book deal or his speaking gigs he was just sharing his message with people in their homes this is someone who worked hard to start sharing his message and instead he says he got lucky that is a sign of someone who's grateful and he says he's living his dream and is grateful for every day and we are back for fast facts just try and answer as quickly as you can okay without really thinking about okay all right what is the wallpaper on your phone it's a photograph it's a it's an art it's I'm a I'm an art nut so it's a photograph of a girl in a pool but it's the brew the pool is decorated like it's a how it's hard to explain okay so it's raining with our just go hard okay it's hard what's the last thing you googled uh probably a restaurant something nearby yeah Scrabble or charades Oh Scrabble hands down favorite book a man's search for meaning favorite fiction book uh Alice in Wonderland chocolate or vanilla chocolate one word you're guilty of saying too often probably the word inspire who is the last person that you called or texted my sister what was the last awkward situation you were in thank you pick a day I mean last vacation you took uh Bahamas favorite hobby photography coffee or tea tea early bird or night owl it's changed I used to be a night out nice till I'm lucky hybrid kind of hybrid yes winter or summer winter wine or beer wine pancakes or waffles don't care guilty pleasure TV show Game of Thrones but I don't feel guilty yeah neither marie forleo said the same thing and i also I agree um favorite snack um I like those I like those pop corners you know they call they like the popcorn things sweet thing there's a good interesting I'll try and google app for the rest of us and link to whatever it is you're talking about good um what the cold is nothing favorite cereal I'm I like I'm I'm a syrup I have many boxes of cereal and I moved by my self and so there's no favorite cereal it's the art of mixing cereal you know is the same way chef coding Siri ologist is what I am interested yeah I mix cereals there's usually raisins in there there's usually maybe sometimes there's fruit I like I'm going through a goat's milk phase right now interesting yeah what is your favorite music right now I have an eclectic taste in music I mean this is embarrassing the the Hamilton soundtrack I mean that yeah yeah I wondered if you were going to say that because it's like a phenomenon and I love that you just yeah how did myself that's really good your friends are gonna like to sing it um he's singing it out Oh like to the point where my friends are like okay you can shut up now amazing biggest pet peeve I got a bunch of those I I hate it when I mean how myopic are we talking here I hate open cabinets when people leave cabinets open like I walk into someone's house and cabinets are up and I will go and just like close all their kitchen cabinets like don't come over it makes me keep skating on it makes me really uncomfortable that my mom is just on to the next task no no so is mine I know like I'll open the cabinet take some that close the cabinet open a cabinet take something out close again yeah I get that that's what's gonna what I know where it comes from but it's true what were you doing right before this interview I was working with the wonderful people at UI figuring out what we're going to do a test EF and what were you be doing after this interview uh I don't know actually alrighty honest I don't know well again thank you so much this has been incredible it's been an awesome time thank you for fitting it in I'm Kelsey Humphries this is simon Sinek and this has been the pursuit don't forget guys there are three ways to support the show you can subscribe here on YouTube you can leave a comment and you can go subscribe to the weekly emails to go behind the scenes and get extra info from each episode

Channel: Kelsey Humphreys

Views: 226,863

Rating: 4.856472 out of 5

Keywords: simon sinek, start with why, success, the pursuit, kelsey humphreys, business, leadership, interview, talk show, leaders eat last, how to, start a business, become an author, start a movement, ted, tedx, ted talks, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, inspiration, motivation, determination, the pursuit with kelsey humphreys

Id: BqP5wQ8KE5I

Length: 41min 58sec (2518 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 04 2016