Simon Sinek in conversation with Reggie Yates

[Music] [Applause] Oh [Applause] hello Union Chapel how you doing this is very exciting for me I grew up all of two roads over I grew up on a road called Liverpool Road which is just over there so is there anybody from Islington in here this evening we we've got a new crowd now this man over here we're going to we're definitely going to unpack all of the amazing things that he's written about and I'm sure you've heard him say in various interviews but before we get to that what I really want to do is kind of get a measure of who's in the room now Simon of its 1984 right yes 19 18 ish which depressing me because I was born in 1983 but 1984 apparently at the beginning marker as to when millenials were born so by show of applause at the giveaways the people using their phones there's actually people who've got their phones up already my show of applause could you please make it known if you were born 1984 or after go for it there are a lot of Millennials in there did somebody actually boo the Millennium I'm sure I heard somebody boo in the back now the last time I was on this stage we're talking about this backstage time and the last time I was on this stage I was about nine years old I had a terrible haircut and I was wearing trousers that were far too short for me singing as part of the quiet of my school I kind of had trousers better too short for me on now that hasn't changed but it is amazing to be back here in you were actually born in London I was born in Wimbledon was it feel like to be back it's always nice to come back I mean there's a part of me that's still very English and I had family here are still cousins and aunts and uncles and my grandmother so yeah it's always nice to come back I'm sure I'm not the only person to notice his accent has become that bit more English into thin back and can you hear that yeah do you feel that shift whenever you were you come back to the UK do sort of slide back into it I don't read on it I don't do it on purpose and I know it happens and I can hear it my ex and I can actually hear myself sound American when I'm in English when I'm in England and I want yeah I don't yeah it's automatic it's weird all right what would the plan for today is to have a chat this is a very strange way to have a chat we've got crucifix is all around us and our voices are echoing but the plan is to have a conversation now if this weren't that sort of thing I would have done a big old intro and sort of spoke about some of the commands accolades but I think it's worthwhile kind of going through it because Simon has had the third most viewed TED talk of all time which is kind of impressive and he's also a two-time best-selling author so can we please make some noise with putting in fairness you've done more stuff I've done our vibe writer-director DJ what else is on the list after lots of stuff we've got one of everything yeah there's there's lots of weird stuff thrown in including a Jamaican month but that's a whole other conversation together a crime hoping to make a move so when we do audience Q&A somebody please ask about the Jamaican French yeah anyway but we're here to talk about you I'm here to talk about what it is that you're you're doing now with this new book also I think something that we would all like to get into is a little bit about your your past and history because I'm fascinated by your your take on leadership and also the way in which you attack it and them and how many people you've actually taught to look at leadership in a new way mm-hmm so do you sort of unpack your take on leadership I think we have a gross misunderstanding very often on what leadership is we confuse rank and authority with leadership and my education and leadership I didn't set out to understand it I certainly don't consider myself an expert on the subject but I do consider myself a student of the subject and I'm constantly learning and I've had the great opportunity to spend time with and meet people who truly are great leaders and they all see themselves in service the irony is the best leaders are actually the best followers they follow a cause bigger than themselves and they see themselves in service to that cause and to those people who join them on whatever crusade they're on it's not about being in charge it's about taking care of those in your charge and it has nothing to do with your rank or authority and I think we very often confuse a position of leadership with being a leader and so everybody has the capacity to be a leader and anybody can be a leader regardless of their rank or position and not everyone who's in a position of authority is a leader despite what we call them did you ever work with anybody who was in a position of authority but wasn't actually leader to you which brought you to be oh yeah many times my first boss my first job out of school she had this philosophy that if she whipped us harder that would be better for us and how I might act yeah didn't work because we hated her and we laughed at her and we ignored her and the funny thing is we were a team of six and what it did do is it made us a very very tight team because misery loves company and so what I did learn is the camaraderie that can form was actually a team of five because there's one girl who sort of Britt was a brown-noser and she's not an art she wasn't in our group all right but we took care of each other yeah and this is where I started to learn way back then just the value of taking care of each other especially when you had a toxic bus which we had okay I should probably remind you guys that were actually on Facebook we're streaming on Facebook live at the moment so hello to everyone watching face where you are it's so dark I know where the cameras are I'm probably not even looking down the lens right now but we have had a Facebook question which I don't know what it is no you don't it's been sent in it's a really long time come on seriously it's a really long question so bear with me on this and this question actually covers the Y which is something that you probably quite thinking first but so this will actually submitted by Dom stone bear with me this is going to take a while Dom asks you once said that your ultimate goal was world peace considering you're a big advocate of the laws of diffusion of innovation in the application of your work cheers on how far along the curve do you feel you are with your why and it's adoption around the world nice short sympathy yeah so let me unpack that my new - there's like three things that I'll try and explain a little bit there so yes the ultimate goal is world peace this unachievable goal that I'll never see in my lifetime so the question it begs the question why do I write business books I joke that I write philosophy books that are cleverly disguised as business yeah yeah ish they're sold in the business section but that I actually am actually very interested in business and companies because that's where the people are you know in during the Great Depression in the United States they had 25% unemployment what I hear is that 75 percent still have a job in the recession in 2008 unemployment went up to 10% what I hear is that 90% still have a job in other words if you want to get to the people get them at work because it's a lot more efficient than going door to door to door to try and get people as individuals but if I get them at companies I can get thousands very quickly millions very efficiently and if people love coming to work and they take care of each other and they practice trust and cooperation they're happier people they live longer they're healthier they go home happier they treat their spouses better they treat their kids better they have better marriages they come back to work happy the next day they treat each other better it's World Peace you get the idea but the way you achieve those kinds of things the way you make a tipping point as dumb points out is something called the law of diffusion of innovation every population on the planet regardless of its size including this room sips across the standard deviation the old bell curve the first two and a half percent of our population our early adopters the next 13 and a half percent of our population are our innovators 34 percent early majority next 30 percent late majority less extreme since Tigers and well good through the whole thing but net net to change anybody's ideas to create a social movement you actually don't aim at the majority they're cynical they're risk-averse you look for the early adopters you look for the left side of the curve who the ones are going to go alright I don't think it's perfect but I'm willing to try it you know these are the people who are willing they have a higher risk tolerance they're willing to suffer a sacrifice spend more time spend more money to be a part of something that reflects their own beliefs and so we completely committed ourselves to talking to that audience first and foremost for example way back when remember a guy who's given my name who wanted to hire me and I got on the phone with him and he said convince me why I should hire you and this isn't one at a time where I had I didn't have two pennies to rub together and sort of every dollar helped and he said to me convince me why I should hire you and my answer was don't because he told me he was not an early adopter by saying that an early adopter would say to me I think you're on to something I don't think it's perfect but I really want to be a part of this that's the language I would listen for it and and and what happens is those people tell their friends and they're the ones that spread the message hence the law of diffusion so to answer Dom's question now where do I think I am it's way small we talked about this at the office all the time when anybody says oh my god we're doing so great or this happened somebody will say it's tip of the iceberg it's just the tip of the iceberg we've been saying it for years no matter what we accomplish them having books we sell or Ted Ted views it's all tip of the iceberg yes we've got more view of the iceberg with this you're trying to change the whole world I'm trying to completely undo the way business is done left over from the 80s and 90s I mean the way business is generally conducted today is old-fashioned and outdated and it doesn't work and it's not good for capitalism and it's not good for us the result is things like we're seeing in the world today marine lepen is a serious contender for for president of France wrecks that all of these things are the result of some of the policies left over from the 80s and 90s I want that all gone so it's going to take time okay we should probably get to it I mean we've got an audience full of Millennials here and everything we want to get into this millennium question so I'll get a shorter answer and no no I like them online subscribe between a company's feet and let's get to that video you did an interview and a part of that interview sort of chopped out and ended up going viral and viewed around 150 million times across different platforms which is something like that in an absolutely insane number and this idea of the Millennial question was dissected and championed by some broken down by others explain to me what happened from from your point of view and why happen the way it did so every single talk that I would give every single meeting that I would have literally a hundred percent someone would raise their hand and ask me the millennial question some manager business owner whoever it was would express their frustration in leading Millennials but it wasn't whatever they were doing wasn't working and it was pervasive every single industry military government politics big business small business b2b b2c to everything everybody asked the question and so I fashioned an answer talking to a lot of people about their struggle but more importantly talking to Millennials and listening to them I fashioned an answer and this was the answer that I would give at all these talks and I did an interview he asked the question I gave the answer and as you said somebody edited it out put it on YouTube somebody else took it off YouTube put it on Facebook and then it got weird and none of us expected it yeah and we found out when all of our phones started exploding because people started texting and calling telling us that like six people had already sent them this is this video so we started to tune in and watch the numbers and it had 80 million views in eight days it's incredible which was insane why do you think it exploded in the way it did I knew the answer was relevant because when I would give it on stage those who are leading Millennials would light bulbs and start going off behaviors that they didn't understand or behaviors that they would accuse of laziness or entitlement all of a sudden made sense but to me more importantly I met a ton of Millennials who had come up to me afterwards and thanked me and some of them were brought to tears because they thought it was them they thought they were broken they thought there was something wrong with them the struggle to form relationships the struggle to form trust or deal with stress they thought it was them and they understood that they still have to they still had that struggle that the problem doesn't go away but they're not broken it's it's largely because of how they grew up that impacted their view of the world and so I'm really proud of the fact that the vast majority of the responses have been overwhelmingly positive and I always double-check I mean I don't give some highfalutin answer and I always ask the Millennials in the audience am i our face and they'll they're usually sort of they give me a nod and say I'm doing okay so it's not it my goal is not to talk to down and to anybody but to rather help people understand sort of the lot that we've all been dealt yeah well for the people in the room that haven't actually seen a video I'm sure all the people that Facebook you or you have seen it but I'm we did this is just for me is it possible for you to sort of talk us through those four pillars that essentially break down what the issue is for Millennials yeah I'll do it it's a bit like a 15 minute things I'll do it in like three minutes okay thank you sure basically it's based on four observations parenting impatience technology and environment so parenting a disproportionately high number of Millennials were subject to what others have described as a failed parenting strategy too many were raised being told that they could achieve anything they want in the world which inherently sounds good just because they want it the hard work part was sort of left out just if you want it you can have it right and lots of positive affirmation because we want our kids to grow up you know with great self-confidence but excessive amounts of positive affirmation not enough pointing out when things are broken and even accountability started to suffer so when when you and I were kids and we got in trouble at school our parents would say to us what have you done now and that changed to what's wrong with your teacher right or what's wrong with your school not you and so what ended up happening was a group of people grew up with a false truth about who they are and what they're capable of in the world then they graduate and they get it the first job and like this they discover they're not special they can't would have have whatever they want the mum can't call and get them a promotion and believe me we've heard stories of parents calling and complaining because their kids didn't get jobs or didn't get a promotion we've even heard stories of parents who filled out job applications for their kids like it's Wow it's yeah and these aren't like onesies and twosies either but the point is is they get into the real world and they find out that the real world is does not match how they grew up and what it does is it shatters their self-confidence so a disproportionately high number of people young people today are growing up with lower self-esteem group than previous generations right now if you combine that with the ill effects of Technology it exaggerated that problem there's a chemical inside our body called dopamine dopamine is released for very good reasons and it's a very healthy thing however there are some things in our modern society that can hijack that dopamine reward system so things like alcohol smoking and gambling all release dopamine that's the reason those things feel good the reason those things feel good to do so we enjoy drinking we enjoy gambling because of dopamine right a little bit it's fine drinking is fine too much drinking is dangerous gambling is fun too much gambling is dangerous in other words if it goes unbalanced it can actually be very very addictive we know that our mobile phones and social media release dopamine so that Bing that buzz you know when your phone goes buzz and you get a text feels good right if you're feeling a little bit lonely you know feeling sorry for yourself what do we do we take it off only text 10 friend you know hi hi hi hi hi and hopefully somebody writes you back and you feel good right we count the number of likes that makes us feel good that notifications feel good all of that it's all dopamine it can be highly highly addictive if you compare the technology to alcoholism kids look we had eight restrictions on alcohol nicotine and gambling we have no age restrictions and social media and cell phones if you compare it to alcoholism the date is pretty clear on that which is kids who drink under the age of 15 40% of them will become alcoholics and if they wait til something like 19 I counted executives but the numbers drop down to about 8% will become alcoholics in other words kids are particularly susceptible to dopamine addictions and yet we're getting kids unfettered access to devices and this was the first generation Millennials were the first generation that came of age during the millennium the first generation to grow up with unfettered access to the Internet social media and mobile phones the reason that significant is because like an alcoholic when you suffer any kind of stress as an adult you don't turn to a person you turn to a device you turn to social media for feelings of self-worth and affirmations the number of followers you have the number of likes you get is literally affect your self-worth it can be devastating when somebody unfriend you it should mean nothing but it can be so devastating that's funny and so for a young population that's already dealing with issues of trying to understand who they are and how they fit in the world and it doesn't quite align with how they grew up and affects their self-confidence now when they're suffering stress they actually lack the coping mechanisms to deal with stress and instead of turning to people they're turning to devices and that only exaggerated the feelings of insecurity or anxiety then you add impatience it's an it's a it's a generation that has grown up with instant gratification all around them right now we all have it but Millennials grew up with it so you want to buy something you go on Amazon shows up the next time you you want to watch a movie don't check the movie times stream it whenever you want it you can binge an entire TV season in a weekend and you can go on a date just from swiping right right it's true so you can add anything you want immediately yeah the problem is is job fulfillment and love and deep meaningful relationships don't happen instantaneously and too many people try to solve their problems like I hate my job I've only been here four months they want it to be fixed immediately and they treat love or job fulfillment like it's a scavenger hunt I hear it all the time I'm I want to find the perfect job it's not something you find under a rock like found it it's like I'm I want to find the woman of my dreams I want to find the man of my dreams it doesn't work that way you find someone who could love you and you work very very hard every day to stay in love you find a job with a good culture that shares your values with people who you could trust and they could trust you and you work very very hard to maintain the sense of fulfillment in that career and what happens is because they're not finding it immediately they need to blame themselves or they blame the job and they quit I know 27 year olds who had five six seven jobs already you know and I know I know it's a bad job you shouldn't stick around I get it but that's too many you know and that's too quick quitting after three or four months is too quick unless it's a particularly abusive environment which most of them are and then finally is the work environment taking a group of people with lower self-esteem who are lacking coping coping mechanisms and want all those problems to be fixed immediately and we're dropping them in corporate environments where the standard way of doing business as I said are left over from the 80s and 90s the concept of shareholder supremacy which is putting the interests of an external constituency ahead of the your employees which is the same as a coach making decisions based of the ones of the fans over the needs of the players right that's what's happening I'm an awful fan yeah I don't know what that means yeah a lot of people in the room will will identify with my pain right now I know I'm gay I know it's a football team yeah that's all I got I'm a Mets fan that's probably something that can get actually bad right completely llamas are so amazing for our the corporate environment they're like neighs right so the content of shareholder supremacy was a theory proposed in the late 1970s popularized in the 80s and 90s okay now it's normal now we hear about oh I have to put my shareholder first we have to produce shareholder value it's just a theory I don't think a very successful one when the cost is the concept of using mass layoffs mass redundancies to balance the books every year did not exist prior to the 1980s it was popularized in the 80s and 90s now it's so normal when somebody announces a round of redundancies we don't actually yeah we don't actually take notice almost everything one of us has a friend if not ourselves who've been laid off because sorry we missed our arbitrary projections so now you have to go home and tell your family you can no longer provide for them just you know just business nothing personal right and this was these concepts these ideas were popularized in the time they were boom years it was relative peace a kinder gentler cold war and those times do not exist these are no longer boom years we do not have relative peace and the Internet has completely changed the way business is done in other words what work then cannot work now and I think it's a green just that businesses choose to blame a population when they enter a workforce that does not actually view them as human beings that used them Rather's numbers on a on a spreadsheet and I think that has to go away to the Millennials in the room does that speak to your experience it's all by show of applause ha ha 1 or 2 1 or 2 not as many has applauded as who claimed they were millennial yet what this is interesting we'll get to that later I'm off the back of that video going viral there were some people who didn't agree with your point of view there were a couple yeah there were some people who threw into the mix you know graduates not being able to find employment in the way that they and maybe might have done in decades past there were other things that were brought up that were challenging your theorem what do you say to the people that challenge your solar Millennials I've watched a lot of the videos and I read a lot of the the criticisms because I don't think that I'm right and I don't think that I'm I think I have a perspective right so I'm always interested in refining my thinking so I taken all the criticisms but a lot of them weren't helpful I'll be honest it's a nice way of putting it the I'm pretty sure you different language at the time no no I'll be specific and you'll you'll see the so so like from older generations the most common thing I got from older generations was I'm letting them off the hook and they have to take accountability for themselves of course like of course you have to take accountability for your own life but they think company shouldn't be responsible for fixing everything I'm like well they're your employees so how's it working out of course you have to take responsibility for fixing your corporate culture like how can you not take responsibility so I rejected all of those you know like accusing one for not taking accountability well not taking time to do it yourself I thought was kind of funny yeah from some of the Millennials they said things to me like how can I make generalizations about an entire generation I can't simply make a generalization about an entire generation we're not all the same of course of course of course it's not everybody but we can make generalizations about populations because populations come of age during the same world event so if you came of age during World War two odds are some of our grandparents are a little more miserly and frugal than us okay they want to get every drop of toothpaste out of the tube that's not because they're broken or brain damaged it's because they grew up during rations and it affected how they grew up and how they see the world in other words the the major events when we come of age will have an impact on how we view the world as a population and the same can be said for millennials the first population to come of age in a time with Internet ubiquity and cellphone ubiquity so you can make generalizations that's why things like psychology and sociology exist and you could make generalizations you couldn't have those social sciences so that wasn't helpful that was me well that was most of it going back TV and I'm open to any other suggestions genuinely well I tell you what there will be an opportunity for you to give suggestions but hopefully questions as will fit into a Q&A in about another 10 or 15 minutes so if you have any questions please get them ready work out how you're going to say them there will be a microphone and please I mean I've been in a million-in-one audiences like this where people get the mic and I said I've got a question and it's actually a statement not do that let's make them actual questions as opposed a movement and you can ask Reggie questions to both naina knows is all about this guy but yeah if you do have questions clearly we don't want statements to prove as I have questions for you Addie's yeah I will get to our two I'll ask your questions and you can find me what suddenly made me very nervous you don't have any family members still living in the UK do I do oh crap okay yeah could get very intimate and they're very big fans of you are weird okay cool moving on you touch on the wife a little bit anyone we won't we won't go into in too much depth but you did touch on the Y and I'm interested to just sort of find out whether you believe Millennials are capable or if they actually do try and find the way without being being talked about I think some of the given the times they grew up in yeah I think Millennials have also some fantastic advantages that other generations do not have for one this concept of purpose or cause is pervasive they want to make an impact they want to be a part of an organization that stands for something and they are much more vocal when they're not given that you know and I think that's wonderful because older generations will have an awful job and suffer in silence where Millennials are the first to say I'm out of here this is not for me and I think that's really I think there's a huge advantage of that I think it puts a lot of pressure on companies that they should stand for something and have a sense of purpose or cause and I think Millennials are a large contributor to that pressure which i think is great but do they know whether something is bags of course sometimes I think that I think too many of too many have a concept is too broad right like I want to make an impact I mean that could mean anything you know I think the Y is helpful to guide us in our decisions in our careers when there's some actual focus like saying I want to make an impact is like saying I want to go on holiday we're gonna be going on an adventure you want to go skiing like you don't have to pick the country but if you can shape it a little bit like I love beaches then it gives you a sense of where you could go and a why is the same you want to have some some barriers that it gives you a sense of the decisions you would make or the places you could work with the kinds of relationships that will make you feel more like you belong than others but I want to make an impact it's just too broad it's just too broad I want to go on a holiday it's just just too broad but I love that they at least talk about it they talk about it more than all the generations three books in on the honor you know on the precipice of your fourth yeah what precipice is a good word is what would you say your your why is now and had to change my wise to inspire people to do the things that inspire them so together we can change our world you said that before that was so smooth yeah and I have a crystal-clear vision of the world I want to live in and it's a it's a it's a vision of the world that does not yet exist mine I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired to go to work feel safe when they're there and returned home fulfilled at the end of the day and I've committed absolutely every ounce of my being in my career to try and build that world and find others who want to build it with me a why is fully formed by the time we're in about our late teens and it does not change for the rest of our lives it is the product of our upbringing we are who we are and the rest of our lives simply offer us opportunities to live in balance or out of balance with our why so why does not change no matter what happens to us tragedy doesn't produce a why but it might produce an opportunity for you to realize your why for example and when you find that you're naturally loving something and you're naturally passionate for things odds are your why is there and when you're struggling even if it's something similar you've done many times then your why is not there and so when you know what the why is you can help direct where you can call it whatever you want be passionate being the flow have also under spiring more frequently but it doesn't change ever and with the the the work that you've done on millennials has your relationship with social medium and cellphones change for the barrel for West I suffered the addiction and I learned to manage it I've learned I would you know sometimes I fall back but for the most part I've learned to manage it really well so I deleted Facebook entirely I don't have it anymore I don't use it the Facebook is absolutely fine yeah people watching on Facebook right now screaming we love you guys we really love you guys especially this guy we love you too I have a bird could be watching do I take you out I have a bad habit of doing that yeah I went to an innovation conference and I talked about the yeah I talked about the stupidity of the word innovation because it's lost its meaning and I forgot where I was and the word innovation ha ha ha that's right above my head and you were saying that you deleted a generic blue app I just believe I delete my idea yeah so and I now have it when I go out with friends for dinner for example I'll actually leave my phone at home or I'll give it to the friend I'm out with so I actually like an alcoholic you can't trust your willpower don't drink like that doesn't work don't check your phone it's an addiction just telling yourself or yelling at somebody doesn't sound like a woman my friends we play a game we call it stacking have you all right so stackin is anyone else in here done this alright if you're going for dinner tonight for the group of people you should stack I promise it's an idea dub sound sexually deviant I promise it's my last it's actually concerning a phone so what we all do is we'll all put our phone in a sack in the center of the table and the first person to reach for their phone pay for the bill so it stops you from coming for your phone especially if there's a lot of you yeah so if you're leaving it at home and you're going for dinner has that changed anything yeah a little Friendship Circle are they doing the same thing yeah we're all doing it mmm and or we'll all hand our phone one to the left so you have your because you know what happens when somebody goes the toilet you pull out your phone because heaven forbid you should just sit for a five minutes you know and we've all had the experience where somebody you're with and you're just to be walking down the street and one pulls out the phone and you feel stupid so you pull out your phone that's two people on the phone and so you see what happens so I have no problem being out with friends and saying can you create a phone away because we're just a dinner just check it later when you go home now there's always exceptions it's not a draconian thing like you just say hey there's one thing I'm waiting for it's really important fine but it's it's the fact that we're I mean I you see it in restaurants all the time I sit next to people and I see them just checking Instagram while they're at dinner like I think unnecessary maybe I'm it later I play way too many games for my own good but again you also play a Palmer at dinner my friends and I is to you know loose dinner no we didn't just play game we basically like to look at other people in LA but we look for the uncomfortable couples better sat in silence and try and work out what's gone wrong in their relationship the game that me this was sense of humor that my friends and I have right so that's one of the games that we play but nowadays when I play go on have you ever played the first date game of two spots appear at any blush of applause anybody in here on the first page you know how we could tell because you upload it oh it's funny how only one of them yeah yeah someone's really embarrassed right now by show of hands how many people are in a first date was going well oh you do that bromine done yeah look see read so yeah I love playing the first date game just based on body language trying to guess who's on a who's on that first date right and I was I was sitting next to a couple in a restaurant is so clear they want a first date I could hear the conversation I could tell the body language and then he pulls his phone at comicon and and he was doing something and then he puts it on the table which is really bad I'll show you who's has a phone somebody check the phone up go on I'm fine piggy she brought it up dr. gahl I just realized on my own so so here let me show you the pack there's a subconscious reaction to the phone I'll show you what if I would have sit here while I'm talking to Reggie holding my phone I'm not checking it it's not buzzing it's not beeping I'm not checking I'm simply holding it do you think that I feel that this is the most important thing to me right now no I'm simply holding it in other words when we put our phone on the table it sends a subconscious message to the other people at the table that you are not the most important thing to me right now putting it upside down is not more polite we hold on okay the fort fort this is very warm is it it's a bomb here yeah but my favorite one is when it's face up and it rings and somebody leans over and goes I'm not gonna get it oh so we never right the point is is when you put the phone on the table it communicates subconsciously to somebody that they're not that important to them to you so this chap is out on a first date and he puts the phone face up on the table Martin I'm sitting there I should have just eaten my sushi but of course I'm that's obsessing with what's going on and I'm praying she'll go to the bathroom and then she goes to the bathroom and I lean over and say put your phone away and he says what I said and I give him a little lecture about what the phone does and I said did you not notice when you pulled your phone out she looked away did you not notice and by the way she hasn't called her phone at once she's showing you unbelievable respect show her the same respect and I promise you your date will go better so he put it away see that the change that I've actually know if this that those couples that sat in silence in the past while playing my weird invasive game they now actually sat on their phone yeah have you ever seen that oh yeah of course and and what we don't understand that the human brain it if you think you're good at multitasking and you can because I hear this all the time from young young people he's like you don't understand because you're older they say to me we are very good at multitasking because we grew up with the devices the science is not on your side Stanford University did a very successful study that basically demonstrated that there is no such thing as multitasking all there is is moving from task to task it has very very quickly in other words it's not you're not actually multitasking you're just bouncing between things and from a brain standpoint it does many things that don't help so for one it takes about 20 minutes for our brains to engage in deep deep thought focus right so you've had it where you've worked on the paper you know you're writing something you're working on something at work and over the course of time you find yourself really deeply now every time there's an interruption that process resets so if you never allow for it to happen you actually struggle to form deep thoughts and actually have big ideas what's more we the studies show that we get interrupted emails go ding something goes buzz you know we get interrupted on average every four minutes right and what's happened now because we're so conditioned to being up interrupted we actually self interrupt meaning our email didn't ding we just go over the email and hit refresh a few times our phone didn't buzz I just lift it up and check so we're actually interrupting ourselves without interruption so what is happening is we're struggling to we actually struggle to form so we sit down for dinner with our friends the intense wonderful conversation doesn't just start we sort of sit and look at the menu and then somebody says something and you start to engage so when we interrupt that and I've seen it happens too often where people get on their phones for a few minutes and they put them down then they sit in complete silence just staring up into space and because it's boring somebody picks up the phone again so even when they put it away it's not way long enough to actually engage and enjoy yeah I ma'am we're getting we're getting this I'll be getting the family one last thing and I'm 33 maggiore my friends around the same age group and weirdly they're all getting married and having kids now and it's really strange the conversations that we're having one of which is actually how to manage your children in this technology age howdy when do you introduce digital technology to your children etc it's sort to somebody like myself who travels a lot spends a lot of time on planes and in airports you see parents who are trying to find a way to pacify their kids you're a new dummy the new pacifier is an iPad and I see it so much to the point where it actually worries me and concerns me and where do you think that's going and how much of a problem do you think something about because yes children do need to be able to integrate it look at use technology understanding but could it be dangerous could it be going into anything I mean it's like anything else it's about balance right and the problem is it's too often unbalanced a very small child having their own device is really it can be very dangerous as I said before with the alcohol and alcoholism under 15 having that kind of open access is potentially very very dangerous even sort of way children's would have learned object permanence to use devices rather than real things it can do damage child psychologists are talking about this kind of stuff as well but I understand that is you know that parenting can be that you can be exhausting and hard to give a kid the thing is wonderful and I think that's fine now and then but when it becomes too often or when I went out for lunch I went out for brunch in New York and the way there was a table table of parents of three or four couples and a table of kids with six or seven kids sitting around the table you know the kids table and all the parents were talking and eating and joking and every single child had a device at the table and that is unbalanced that's the point but but for young kids 11 12 13 where you're considering buying them their own phone the best examples I've heard our parents who are now sitting down with their kids and giving them a contract so just like we have to sign contracts when we get our mobile phones so - are they making their kids sign contracts literally sit down and negotiate the terms yeah and some of the terms will include if you want your own phone you're never allowed to use it in your bedroom that includes as your alarm clock literally the phone is not allowed in the bedroom you're never allowed to have it at a dinner table and if your friends come over all your the phones will be taken away while you guys play and you can agree to these - and some parents are coming up with more creative things as well but I've heard those terms and the kid has to sign the contract and if they violate any of the terms they lose their phone for a week they pre agree to the terms those are the conditions and then they can have a phone so that's I think that's a healthier way of dealing with it yeah hopefully that'll stop the children I've seen swiping picture frames confused as to why it's not coming alive right we have a couple of microphones floating around right now one yesterday we've got a couple of microphones lurking around we should probably get to the Q&A now if you have a question please raise your hand and make it very clearly shown there we go and get the lights up a little thank you very much all right since to the current we do have some questions and okay she's literally shouted here but we are going to start with you she actually doesn't need a mic can we get a microphone to this lady pleased with the neckerchief please go for it what's your name my name is Laurie this is Eleanor the cushy one I push the Illinois what no question my question is you spoke about a work ethic being instilled in Millennials being almost a lost trait really they kind of assume that they can have anything without working hard for all of you so are there any lost traits that you would guard now these Millennials that are going to be parents to Centennial's what are those traits that we can't lose track of one of those traits that we don't we don't want to lose sight of yes we want to encourage them but how do we how do we balance that with our children so the technology thing is to me the most concerning one I think the other stuff is sort of like like there are people much better qualified to answer the question I eat people have children I appreciate the irony that I talk about parenting the but I did the bigger concern for me is is the technology because it's become so pervasive I think that this youngest generation you know who are who were born sort of around 2004 Jen said they're being called now we're Centennial I hadn't heard that one no more that as Reggie was saying like you see too many young kids with either their own devices or always on their on the devices when they're out with their parents as opposed to just being uncomfortable or learning what it's like to put up with something or learn how to talk at a dinner table you know that to me is the most concerning only because I've been doing more research on it and it's really really scary just as it just to share with you and this is these statistics are American statistics but I have to believe there's something similar here guess which demographic has the highest rate of the highest rate increase of suicide and when the UK its young men so in the state its girls 10 to 15 years old the number of girls 15 2015 the number of girls 10 to 15 years old who are killing themselves has tripled in the past through 15 years tripled Wow and we know that shaming on the internet and internet bullying is absolutely a part of it feelings of inadequacy based on all of their friends is absolutely a part of it and we know that girls spend 40 percent more time on social media and boys these aren't causal relationships that are correlated I understand but I think given the numbers they're only going up I think it's responsible for us to at least investigate this and and and intercede before the numbers become really really scary and by the way they all looked happy on Instagram yeah everyone looks happy on Instagram okay let's get another question I'm gonna go to Casa Louie first your hands up quickest can we get Mike this gentleman and stop it thank you hi I'm David hey Dave so basically I work for a tech company and we'd like to believe that's more than being custom obsessed like many companies say we're employee obsessed and we spend a lot of time as leadership team or management team whatever we want to call it talking around how we can make our employees life better at work so do you feel that especially in fact across all sectors this revolution are started and people are actually paying more attention to you know what they can do better for their employees to create the right environment yes and no I'm glad the questions being asked and I'm glad that people are concerned with it it particularly in tech though I think it fires off very hard in the wrong direction so a lot of tech companies think that looking after people means free food open space flexible work hours no permanent desks you know free laundry and all of the stuff is all very superficial and even when you give people that why aren't they staying and why are they still feeling like stressed right the so I think though those things are nice to have and if you get them it's wonderful don't get me wrong I think they're good but I think what's more important is is it's creating environment where people feel that the company actually wants to help them and see them grow as individuals and as human beings where if they screw up they're told all right try again you know where they feel like they can screw up and someone will rush in to either support them or give them more training or let them just try again solve their own problem where there's all kinds of classwork and coursework like listening skills and and effective confrontation things that we struggle with I mean it's hard to say to your boss or to a colleague you really hurt my feelings or you screwed up you know giving feedback and getting feedback it's one thing to demand it it's another thing to have the skill to hear it we all like positive feedback the very negative feedback that sometimes hard to take so I think those skills are desperately lacking in a lot of companies and a lot of companies should be teaching those things and really working hard to create an environment where people feel like they belong and are completely devoted to each other more than anything else and I think that's that's very much lacking in Tekken and other businesses in other words leadership training they teach you how to do your job they teach you how to code they teach you how to use the software when they promote you they don't teach you how to lead so why would we expect to have good leaders of nobodies teaching us how to lead I'm sure and okay you threw a hand up quite quickly right here in the center quite an awkward place to get the mic let's try I haven't quite figured out these chairs yeah it is your Batcave I just don't know if this is it does it look weird or like yeah it's a weird student how IKEA number but we'll deal with it I am I had these chairs of my first apartment issue there yeah I had the white ones though do you have a mic yes oh hi so you don't talk about my first phone I was actually pointing at a lady then I did a labeling me hello was it me no okay great okay so I've got a 10 question oh there you are yes okay okay so am I'm a previous generation and so my kids are Centennial's and so they're coming of age now they've gone 1999 and 2001 I'm very grateful I didn't have a smartphone when they were very little and so what will you be saying about them in five or ten years that they're wonderful people and well-adjusted and leaders amongst their peers I don't really understand the question I don't know what I'm supposed to say well then later the minute Millennials and faithful they've got smartphones and what do you think that generation will be like no more have there been much of a change would you say in in terms of the way the people our parents and their children now versus I don't millennial kids not that I've seen I think I think because until we label these things addictions which they haven't been labeled yet in the West we're not recognizing them as problems and so we're not adjusting our behaviors interestingly all the data that I have about the parenting strategies didn't come from child psychologists it actually came from parents themselves there's a good dearth of data of parents of Millennials who looked back and be like yeah I probably would have done that differently which i think is funny [Music] so the answer is I from my work I haven't seen too many changes I think some of its exaggerated and actually thing has gone worse and if we think about the ones who are coming of age you think about the major events that are happening in our world as they come of age with 12 13 14 I think they're living through things like breakfast and Trump and Miriam's marine lepen and sort of immigrants and these kinds of things and I'm very interested how these attitudes will shape them I think they this young generation is going to become a very accepting generation I mean ready feet one of the things that I absolutely love about Millennials is they tend to be a pretty accepting generation much better than older generations whether it's sexuality or gender identity it's a big nothing like these young generations like whatever you want to do is fine school and I love that it's really a big non-issue and I think this younger generation is going to be even more accepting and inclusive of people who are not like them than previous generations and I can I wait for them to grow up can we pass the microphones down I'm so sorry do you mind passing the microphone down sis lady just just in front of you a few rows and maybe we can get it to her because I actually pointed at her and I feel really bad so maybe we can get you make yourself known don't shy Gordon stand up there we go ah sit down okay please far away I was find it really interesting what you said that you're why develops at quite a young age and I thought it'd be interesting to kind of hear maybe from both of you your journey to your way and yeah that's it okay sure you go first oh god all right and what is your wife my why I guess is obviously the obvious stuff such as you know looking after your family providing for the people that don't want you but once you get all that stuff out the way I get to essentially be the example that I never had and to create conversation in a way that I never heard groan mmm I guess that's my wife that's nice and it developed over a long period of time I spoke about growing up just over there just a little road at Murray State but when I was 8 years old I went to the amateur CR which is now the young actress fear violence depart just over that way and that sort of brought the world of drama to to me and change my life and I think at that point I realized quite quickly the minute I had a platform I needed to do something with it and you know I've gone from children's entertainment to Saturday nights actually making films about subject matter I care about and I feel that that change is actually happening so I guess my wife developed and that's on my wife and that's why you enjoy your work yeah when you do that yeah and I went to Center Foundation boy school in Old Street roundabout and I gave a talk at founder thing and I gave him a to talk about passion and I think at the core of my why really is it's a word passion if I could boil it down and simplify and pretend that none of that was said basically my wife goes back to passion is passionate that a part of your why and there's a driver for you at all passion is a part of no one's why interesting okay because passion is a result passion is like profit like if we engage in something that talks to who we are we will be passionate if we are forced to do something that doesn't talk to who we are we will be stressed and so everyone in the world is passionate which is not all passion for the same thing so either by choice or by luck if you find yourself doing something that talks to you the result is you will feel passion and you will have passion for it as you're doing so I think the reason that passion and this is to your credit roof the reason passion is so dominant for you is you seem to have a sense of who you are and what your cause is the way you describe it to mark to have the conversations if you didn't have a you know I didn't hear ya you didn't hear sorry because it's been so clear to you for a long time and you seem to be very good at making decisions with that as a filter with that in mind you know pointing your career in a direction and I know you know you're doing these big things and your career is going like this and you walk away from all of that to do things that are much smaller in scope because it speaks to you more that is a very wide base thing to do which is to turn away the fame and the fortune in order to do something that speaks to you more and you undoubtedly will have more passion for these projects when you would for the other one for that reason yeah it definitely doesn't pay as well if you're not wrong yeah it really doesn't on you what it feels good and it feels good so what just one more thing Twitter I'm sorry to cut you yeah I think is that fair by the way is that it yes it is and the measure of that I found is the conversations that I have on the street now so it's gone from I really loved your suit last night on Saturday night not on the voice to what you uncovered in that film about autism really spoke to my experience because I have a cousin statistic etc and it's a conversation as opposed to a statement or a white van man games good air cut they say now pull over and say listen I just want to talk to you about the film you made about Tourette's and then it becomes a comment did you feel passion when somebody told you all about your suit complimented you on your suit your haircut I wish your class jigs exactly is buddy yeah anyway your why that's a credit to you I think I think Reggie is a very good example of what a career looks like when you start with why and the fact that he was willing to make the decision that a lot of people especially in show business do not make money and fame become very addictive and are fun and to make a decision based on who you are and what you want to accomplish in the world I think is an example for all of us quite frankly that's the last time we're doing that you're why you've avoided it twice and I know in the bath your head is going on somewhere it was um your wife leave so like you I think that the struggles we have the struggles that we overcome when we're children I think become our strength as adults so as a kid I absolutely had a DD but it was never diagnosed thank goodness because nobody ever treated it or attempted to treat it it was just sort of me with my short attention span and unfocused and all these other things and I was constantly told if you just focus you'd accomplish great things but I still had a real problem which is I had to get through school meaning I had chili I had to like graduate but I never did the reading because I couldn't read I mean I could read technically I can read but it could never get through the book without being distracted I can't learn from reading I'm a terrible learner if I have to read and so I had to learn at a very young age that if I'm going to get through class I'm gonna have to a get good at asking questions be I've got to get good at listening and see I've got to get good at going after class and talking to the teacher and that's exactly what I did teachers loved me and I would ask tons of questions and they would stay after and explain things to me I had to go to class so when I got to university I couldn't sit class and skip class and just do the reading I had to go to every class and I had to have good teachers who good at explaining because if they couldn't explain but I couldn't read I had to learn and so those listening skills and sort of you know getting good at sort of being nice to people because why would you help me otherwise or I think have really helped me as an adult we're sort of listening actively and I don't mind being the fool I don't mind saying I don't understand in a room or everybody's nodding their head yes has really benefited me but it all goes back from trying to get your school ok I think we've got time for one last question Wow you really not bad habit is a quick and it's a very strong army is that is that your question written down on paper okay it's going to say that the big bit of paper hyah and I just wanted to ask you what advice would you give to young Millennials on how to practice patience in the corporate environment and especially when in a new job you're six months in you want to get to the top of that mountain how do we sit out the grind one way to end it so so the bad news is there's no switch like I can't give you an answer that just works like whatever I tell you is gonna it's going to take a little time it's like if you say to me how do I lose weight I'm like well you're gonna have to eat healthy and exercise but it won't you won't see the benefit tomorrow like if you go to the gym tomorrow you will see nothing in fact you'll be in pain right so empirically you'll be like this isn't working okay unless you stick with it and it's the same kind of mentality which is some of these things you have to stick with it and not everybody will see or feel the impact immediately it'll happen at different times for different people but these things work right it's just like exercise and the hardest part is like exercise is it may actually hurt in the short run right so one of the big things is is did you pick the right place to work meaning not from the we're going to pay you a lot and give you a job but do you like the people and we want to make decisions where we work not based on how much they pay us amount placed on what they're going to ask us to do but who we're going to be working for like do I want to work for these people will this person be my mentor will this person help me grow will I feel like I belong here it's way more important especially when we're Junior to fight because we don't know anything in with junior I mean we're idiots we just think we know a lot right I we hold in there the most important thing is to find a mentor and somebody you really want to work with even if I pay a little less because you will grow much quick more quickly okay that's number one number two you have to be the leader you wish you had in other words in what you can't make it a selfish pursuit you know how can I find a job that I love how can I overcome all the challenges how can I learn grit right but rather how can you help someone that you work with who you have a decent friendship with someone you like someone you think could one day actually be a decent leader how do you help them learn grit how do you help them learn patience in other words how can you become the supportive leader for someone else to grow and something remarkable will happen as you practice that skill set not only will those skills improve but they will do them back for you you don't do it to receive you commit to actually seeing someone grow and believe it or not helping someone solve the problems that you're suffering helping someone else solve the problems that you're suffering with actually is the thing that helps you solve your problem also practice putting your phone in your desk I can always tell the generation I walk through an office and I can tell people's generation because older generations are typing and their phones are over here younger generations are typing and their phone is right here so it's type look then type flip-down type of little days so we want to wean yourself off of it right put your phone in your bag I treat it like smoking like take you can send as many texts as you want you can make as many calls as you want outside right just treat it like like take you can take breaks you can set a little pinger for an hour on your computer but every hour you can stop and take a break and check but get rid of the the addiction like really start treating yourself as an addict never bring it to a conference room ever never take it out when you go out for lunch with your friends your colleague just don't even bring it and you'll start to find that your the relationships that you build and your ability to stick through something will actually get easier and at the risk of belaboring the point I don't believe that the courage to stick something out is an internal fortitude you know dig down deep divide the courage right it's when you have the feeling that someone has your back a friend a colleague a boss whoever that you feel that someone's got your back so a world famous trapeze artist will not try a brand new death-defying act without having a net there for the first time right so you need somebody who is that net you need somebody who makes you feel like you could try something and if something goes horribly wrong or you screw it up they'll go I'm here I gotcha don't worry even if it goes wrong I'm still here right you need that person because when we have that person you'll be amazed how much courage you have thank you very much I've been given the nod which means we are pretty much out of time so please can we have around fours one more time you may be fun [Applause] for before you guys jump up and make your way towards that neon bar sign there's actually assigning that happening so you can grab hold of one too it's not all three both Simon's in just in books and get them signed and have maybe a personal message if you know that's all taking place I think in that direction that right that there at that direction sorry so that's all happening over there so if you'd like a book and you like to meet Simon and you like to get a signed copy head in that direction for now from us and to everyone on Facebook thank you and thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: Penguin Books UK

Views: 228,401

Rating: 4.8557377 out of 5

Keywords: Penguin Books UK, books, Simon Sinek, Reggie Yates, The Millennial Question, find your why, Leaders eat last, Start with Why, in conversation, Together is better, Author, Millennial Problem, Millenials, Managing millenials, management, how to manage, ideas, thought, self-improvement, self-help

Id: _ty_wLlOoyM

Length: 65min 42sec (3942 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 03 2017