Simon Sinek on Playing The Infinite Game | The Jordan Harbinger Show Ep. 300 (Full Interview)

I mean look it's it's I mean you know this you know it's the great interviews are the ones were it's like watching television why is David Letterman a better interviewer than a lot of other people yes he actually is interested in the people he's talking to yeah you know that's got to be kind of tricky I think about that a lot from an interview perspective and I think about that when I when I read any book especially yours I wish I read yesterday infinite game and I thought okay at some point every speaker writes a lot of books I don't know if you consider yourself a speaker and author more or both or is it like thought-leaders some sort of nebulous there gasps oh my god I would never call myself that good okay that's a I like to I prefer to guru guru yes yes guru like from the yoga thing or that guy who founded this city I think I think I love that when people call themselves guru in their own borrows it's like I think the whole point of being a guru is you'd actually don't call yourself a guru yeah yeah no no I consider myself an optimist I believe that I'm I have a vision of the world that does not yet exist I'm trying to build it and whatever it takes for me to advance that vision speaking writing teaching whatever it is I'll do it so I don't define myself by anything that I do by the medium no I don't define myself by who I am and where I'm going so you're doing that that like it's easy and people go you're a podcaster it's like well that sounds really lame but it's also kind of true just as you're an author but it's not all you are right it's one thing that I do and it's one thing that I did I do by accident you know I didn't plan on being an author I wasn't one of those guys who's like I've got a book in me you know overly no never I'm surprised he had a you know it wasn't it wasn't an aspiration from youth or anything like that it's I had an idea and somebody thought I needed to write it down and so I did yeah I heard I can't remember who told me this it was like oh yeah she discovered simon Sinek and I was like I wonder if he would agree with that I can't remember who it was though so this story kind of falls on its face or the anecdote was it you'd love to hear if I remember I will send you an email cuz I can't it wasn't some of the guys there are many people who gave me breaks sure there's no I don't think there was anyone it was somebody who basically had said this guy's got to go to Ted and like champ supposedly but this is someone else's version of events too right so it may or may not have happened though I mean I don't know I mean I was given the opportunity to speak at a TEDx I'm very grateful for it you know and and the TEDx video became the highest watched TEDx video on YouTube which is I think what caused a attraction of the Ted people at least that's how I am so you didn't start off at Ted no I I only talked to Ted on the main stage a few years ago for the first time really shocking it's a TEDx and I love it because you know people especially you know Ted can make a career I mean I'm living proof of it you know it can print it can be a catalyst for a career in a major way and so when people go on and do a Ted or TEDx you know you can feel it the tension is palpable because they think it's make or break and they want it to be perfect and they have everything rehearsed and everything and I'm living proof you know that I have terrible video quality terrible audio quality my microphone broke in the you know at the beginning of the talk I've got a pad and pen and no PowerPoint and it became at at one point it was the second most watched TED talk of all time and my point is is like if you have good content you have good content yeah it doesn't matter if it's rough-and-tumble it doesn't matter if the sound quality is imperfect you know people people want ideas it's nice if it works out nicely but it's not essential I would that's such a lucky break in so many ways and and I don't mean that you didn't earn it what I mean is how great is it to go up there and go it's just a TEDx I'll be fine oh the mic broke whatever it's just a it's it doesn't really matter and then that blows up not okay I prepared for this for 90 days I've been rehearsing eight hours a day it cost me 60 grand for a speaking coach full-time and then you know one you're five minutes late or something or the events a little off or the microphones glitching out and you're freaking out right I think that I think what I think what made it work was that I didn't freak out I mean and literally replaced my mic in the middle of my talk with I'm using a wireless mic which the signal is getting interrupted yeah and somebody comes up and hands me a wired mic in the middle and you don't hear me go um or hold on ladies and gentlemen or host this mics not working I'm I'm in the middle of a sentence I think the new mic and I just keep talking and I think that's one of the reasons it works is I'm I'm my mind is really focused on spreading the message and I'm not getting stuck in the in the mind trap of oh my god this is going horribly wrong oh my god what am I gonna do am i you know and so you just just in stride you know I I gave a talk once with a fire alarm went off in the middle of my talk and we all stopped and we're like what you're not going anywhere ladies this is exactly and then you know I stopped and we figured out what happened and then I started again and I I think that's I see that I see it on the on the stage a lot where I see the speaker complaining about something or talking about something or interrupting because what's bothering them they think is bothering the audience right and it's just not true nobody what bothers us on the stage really doesn't bother the audience you know you know Oh ladies and gentleman really sorry I have I have a cold nobody really cares they can hear that you have a cool they can hear that your sniffling and that you know your noses your sinuses are clear they can hear it so I think that's uh I think that's a one of the big tricks of being you know an effective public speaker which is which is the audience is rooting for you they always are and they're pretty forgiving and the more that you point out the stuff that's wrong the more it's gonna go bad yeah the message is what matters that's why the people are there and I understand you know you want perfection but sometimes that's out of your control sure you know and and and I think that's part of what makes really the really effective ones like I guess I've seen it onstage before they're the really good ones are the ones that just it's it's really about the message and not about them people have said oh these the TED talks they're so well rehearsed that even the little gestures that look like they're off-the-cuff are rehearsed I know every speaker is different but what do you think about that do you think a lot of these people are just really good speakers or they're so well rehearsed that even them looking to the left casually is part of their depends on this loitering yeah depends on the speaker I mean some some speakers do actually rehearse every gesture every every joke you know and and Ted is a very buttoned up operation especially for people who don't do it professionally they do but they do rehearse them like crazy and so you know I think there's that there's a few videos out there I can't remember one of the late night talk show has made it made a joke about about giving a TED talk and it in it and it's and it's so they take it's Jesus giving a TED talk you know and has all the tropes in it and it's uncomfortably accurate yeah it's very funny it's on YouTube and it's really funny but yeah I mean some of it is a little kind-- but you know but it depends on the speaker some some speakers are more casual you know Ken Robinson who has the number-one TED talk of all timing and has for forever and we all worship Ken I mean he's as good as it gets you know his his he's everything's real it's all on camera it's just how he is it's just it's magical to watch him it must be when you get sort of elevated to this plane where you're like straight into the pros not that you had nothing to do with that before but like to jump to that stage there's got to be a little bit of um almost like the self-doubt creep in at all are you like oh crap how the hell am I gonna compete with Ken Robinson or well I hope this goes as well as my first talk did I mean it seems like you have you're competing with yourself you're competing with other people at the top of the game it's a little bit I mean I'm not computed with Ken Robinson I'm I'm amazed that I get to be in the same in the same grouping as Ken Robinson you know there's you know I think that there's there's an intense gratitude that that I get to share the stage with these remarkable human beings who I adore and you know some of them I've gotten to know purse and and I I love their work you know and it's a treat for me to hear them and to be included in that in that group is it's an honor so so that's that's a real treat that's a real treat what about pressure from your own work going okay well I mean when I got the opportunity to do the main Ted stage because I mean people were like what are you gonna do yeah I was like well first of all I won the internet lottery you know it's like I didn't plan on my on the start with why talk going viral like that wasn't like yep check did that you know you know this is why I've met somebody recently at a dinner and I asked him what he does he says I make viral videos I'm like oh you don't you make videos and you hope they go viral okay this is the whole point of a viral video nobody really knows how to make him yeah you know you can do videos that do okay you know but I don't think I don't think any videos that have truly gone viral anybody you know it wasn't it wasn't machine that way sure so when I when I had the opportunity to do another TED talk I hadn't I was under no illusions that it was gonna do as well as the first one feels that how are you gonna do better than the first of the answers I'm not like I'm insane like that's like all right you go and do one better is like you like it was number two you go ahead you go be number one just right you can't plan that stuff right you know so I hadn't I wasn't I wasn't I had no pressure on me to outdo the like I said I won the lottery you know I can't win the lottery again and so and so what I did when I showed up for a future TED Talks is I showed up to do the best job I could do and communicate the message that I was trying to communicate as clearly as possible for that message yes and and let the chips fall where they may you know so I I compete with myself in the sense that I'm trying to outdo I I want to hone it's not it's not a question about doing I want to hone my craft you know I love feedback I love honest feedback even more and and I want to get better what do I think that's not unusual I think a lot of people have that sure any of any of us who show up on a daily basis you go and listen to your own podcasts and you might beat yourself up a little bit but the opportunity is okay I know I'm gonna next time I'm gonna do this differently you know I'm gonna I'm gonna do this better you know you become more relaxed you become more comfortable you develop a style it's no different it does it is a little painful though I assume you watch your own talks and you give yourself some of them some of them yeah not everything can confess um why did I do the ones that are different I'd like to watch the ones that I took a risk what did something new those no one's I go watch you hear about guys like David Letterman he brought up earlier watching every show after they do the shuttle I can't go to bed before they watch it and by all accounts he would shred himself mercilessly to the point where people around him were like hey man calm down you know he's making himself like actively miserable doing it there's got to be a happy medium there do you find I look it depends on the style of the of the person you know you know these these these folks are at the top of their game because they're very very hyper critical of themselves you know some of the highest performers I know I'm very hyper critical of themselves more hyper critical of themselves than they are of other people or other people can be of them I'm probably my own worst critic for sure and I notice little things that probably other people miss mm-hmm I you know I think anybody who's satisfied with the job that they're doing isn't growing I mean I definitely had her things that I do where I woke up and like that was good like I know when it's good but I also know when I when I could do better I look at these I think the reason I ask so many questions about this process is because looking from the outside in right people go well simon Sinek every book that you stamp is gonna kill it every talk you give is gonna kill it you do a show like impact Theory rant about Millennials probably a possibly unplanned and then that just takes off and gets I don't know 18 million views or something like that was it good 80 in the first day yeah maybe in the first week I mean all you gotta do is complain about people 35 and under you know that's the new formula I wasn't complaining with you but putting my legs right obviously I like that it's working laughing that thing pops off and then it's like this guy can can't screw anything up at what point do you go hang out with me for a while people someone came over to my house Neil Fletcher who I think you probably know or maybe know of he came over and he's like from the outside and you're doing so great and I'm thinking I wish I had a glimpse of what other people like I want to look at myself like other people maybe do for like five minutes a day just to relax for a second but then there's another part of myself that says well being hypercritical and beating myself up all the time is why you're here in the first place mmm this is why you get to go hang out with somebody who's a guru thought leader whatever you call yourself these days lottery winners lottery winner and then record you know double mic each other and then just sit here and record and then like somehow a check arrives in the mail for doing so yeah but it also is kind of a recipe for there's an element of I don't want to say unhappiness but there's a part of it there's got to be a part of it goes all right now I'm just I'm just torturing myself for this like you're flying around giving talks you'd love it but at the same time don't you want to hang out a little bit more at home watch a little Netflix like the balance has to be hardened that's in my control isn't it it is you know you know when I over commit myself I love only myself to blame you know sure sure I've over committed myself and sure I'm exhausted and I'm like and I beat myself up for saying yes to too much stuff because I want to be out there spreading the message and yeah sometimes forget that I need to recharge my batteries yeah but I'm pretty good I learned the hard way you know the good news is you know I try not to make mistakes more than once but I learned you know I'm pretty good about blocking off time for me and if I have a particularly grueling few weeks I'll i purposely take it easy you know for a week or two you know III think one of the things we can all do regardless if you have a nine-to-five job if you have more control of your own schedule or not is we can still build in time for ourselves and I wear the the the thing that I started to do is because personal time or going to the gym or anything like that started to become flexible it was someone's like you know I we need to have a meeting with you and like oh okay I can go to the gym tomorrow oh that's so you know yeah and and wind up happening as I got out of shape and I wasn't sleeping and and things get worse and worse and worse and so I just became much more prescriptive and much more sort of dogmatic about protecting these these these blocks and my calendar so I you know at the beginning of the week out put in gym time for the next two weeks and and we treated it like a meeting and so somebody called and said you know you know is Simon available the answer be what I'm sorry he's engaged they don't have to know what I'm doing right I'm booked yeah you know who's in downward dog right now you know exactly right and so I started to become more like that's protected time and every now and then what I would do is I'd go into my own calendar and block up two hours that I wrote do not do not schedule anything and it was just time that I wanted to do whatever I want to do whether it was watch TV or go for a walk or catch up on some errands and just like take the dry cleaning in kind of a you know it was just time for me to catch up but I became really really dogmatic that these times were not to be you know not to be changed or moved of course they're always exceptions and attenuating circumstances but for the most part I'm pretty good about it and I think we can all do that you know when you come home to your family I think you know especially if you if you have have kids and stuff you know to actively turn off the telephones for an hour to play with the kids or have dinner with the family I think is a big deal you know if the time for you is 8 to 9 o'clock 8 to 10 o'clock at night where you know you just want to sit down and watch television and just be like ah you know to literally put it in a calendar and be like that's TV time mm-hmm that's my TV time I don't answer emails yeah that's my TV time you know and I became really good at that and less guilty I felt less guilty about it you know I think one of the problems with technology is you know when I remember when cellphones were just starting to show up in the proper way use smartphones and write not like not like the big exactly the big is hello sell sell yeah you know there was this great promise that that we could leave the office because of this device and in reality a backfire it is we don't leave the office the office comes with us right we're always at the office you know because of because of the device so I think one of the things that happens when we take the office with us is if we're not constantly engaging and checking in we actually feel guilty that we're not yeah right of course like and so what ends up happening is there's no blank time you know you know you're walking to the if you live in New York City like I do if you're walking to the subway you know you're on the device if you're off the subway going to the office you're on the device you know when when we're walking we take the phone with us to the bathroom you know oh yeah we do you know you hold it in and look for the phone you know that's there's something healthy about that's it you know and I think what when we're not connected we actually feel guilty and the reality is is that ideas don't happen when we're connected ideas happen when our minds have an opportunity to wonder you know our conscious brains are thinking parts of our brains have access to the equivalent of something like two feet of information around us right so this is this is the part of the brain we access when we Mac is our expertise can you repeat that one more time our conscious brains I'm thinking brains and I have access to the equivalent of information to about two feet of information around it oh I see like a diameter of two feet is about how much information the conscious brain can store yeah okay so and you'll see it's it's it's an analogy yeah it's coming it's coming it's coming and so that's what this is the part of the brain we access when we weigh the pros and cons we think through an idea but our subconscious brain has access to the equivalent of eleven eight goes of information right every conversation we've had every movie we've seen every book we've read get stored somewhere it's just we just can't recall it we just can't pull it up when we want to and this is why we have our great ideas on the shower in the when we're driving when we're for a run when we're just going for a walk but cuz the the brainstorming session actually isn't the time to solve the problem the brainstorming session is the time to ask the question your subconscious brain won't solve a problem for something you're not thinking about it'll solve it'll temp to solve something for a problem you're really facing or an idea you really have it's not gonna just start thinking of random things you know and so if we don't allow that part of the brain to wander literally w a and wo you know when we go for a wonder to allow our brain to wonder well we don't have those innovative ideas and there's a reason for in the shower on the run in bed you know whenever your ideas strike it's because you're not actually actively thinking about anything else right it's the default mode Network or whatever default now and and so when I when I learned about this I became it became really important to me I mean I'm in the idea business you know it became really really important to me to allow my brain to not think but to wonder and so I will schedule time specifically not to engage not to be on my phone and I think like sitting in a restaurant when a friend goes to the bathroom not to pick up my phone while I'm waiting but just to like look around the room is it time to allow my brain I wouldn't call it psycho thought I'd call it life before cellphones sure you know for millennia we were looking at the restaurant while our friends are in the bathroom it's only the past 15 years that we haven't been you know yeah and you know I'm very often I won't even take a phone with me when I go out especially when I'm with out with friends because I want to be totally present but it's actually great for ideas and so i allowing ourself these disengage times is absolutely essential for innovation it's absolutely essential for essential for problem-solving it's actually an absolutely essential for creativity to disengage with the device because it'll the problem is i don't know when it's gonna happen so I'd be like well I took I wasn't on my phone for a whole hour and I had no ideas I know I get it right and and this is the problem it has to be a repetitive behavior because we don't know when the inspiration strikes so I for you know one of the things that I you know I think that I I try to be good at its figuring out how I think figuring out where my ideas come from and trying to repeat those things so if my dears are happening in showers have-have have longer shout right just wasting water like crazy but it's good for business well there's a difference for you to me to shower in a five minute shower yeah you know it doesn't it doesn't mean you standing in there for an hour and a half when I was writing leaders eat last I would have so many ideas in the shower or when I was brushing my teeth for example and I would forget them as quickly as I had them that I kept a dry erase marker in my bathroom and I wrote on the tiles and so as soon as I got out of the shower while I was brushing my teeth head right and I do on the [ __ ] on the tile and some when I was standing there the next day brushing my teeth I'd be staring at my writing on the tile and I'd sometimes have another idea and so you it looked like a beautiful mind it was ridiculous yeah I was gonna say your bathroom my bathroom was kind of hovered all the tiles had these little chicken scratches all over and I don't want to race any of them because I didn't know what ideas were gonna be sparked but my point is is like if you figure out what works for you do that keep a keep a notebook by your butt keep your butt a notebook by your bed you know if take if you go for a run take a notebook with you I usually carry a notebook on the back of my pocket at all times because I don't know when I'm gonna have an idea and I like I said I lose them as quickly as I have them and so the whole idea of disengaging and and and capturing the ideas is I think a big part of where ideas come from there's something to this of course and there's science behind all of this yes I'm wondering if the is the two feet eleven acres thing you know is that something you just kind of like plucked or is that is there actually kind of I heard I heard it that's something I heard it from a reputable source okay that's good enough that's good enough for now yeah I have a terrible memory I have a friend and I'm so jnv him he's so good at remembering he's like you know Yale conducted a study in 1974 by dr. Rogers and dr. you know Smith and they studied this and what they discovered is that there's a you know an 18 to 2 ratio you know and I'm like they did a study like you know they who do all the studies you know the numbers are about right that's me yeah that's you know and that's that should be good enough although yeah now with everybody sort of making things up as we go along yes more importantly I'm I do pride myself on the fact that I do too I do actually go double-check these things sure and and even though I can't remember the details it's it's and if it's not if I'm wrong I'll immediately change it oh she's a couple of times I got a couple things wrong and I immediately stopped even though the wrong one really helped my argument yeah and like when you write a book there's real rigor to writing a book and I have to go find all the exact studies that I've been you know quoting approximately four years sure so yeah I'm really envious with my friends who can remember every detail of these studies speaking of friends that elevate our game worthy rival yeah I love that one it's so good because I feel like we all have these worthy rivals or sometimes we mistreat them can you go over the concepts really briefly so people so if we play in so like this we should give the premise the foundation of what an infinite game is because that's we're gonna oh yeah maybe maybe going oh that yeah no so here's so James Carr is a philosopher who used to teach it NYU for many years he's 87 now he's it's an amazing guy he theorized in 1986 he wrote a little book about these two types of games finite games and infinite games a finite game is defined as known players fixed rules and an agreed upon objective baseball there's a beginning middle and end the goal is to win and if there's a winner there has to be a loser right then you have an infinite game an infinite game is defined as known and unknown players the rules are changeable which means you can play however you want there's no referees and the objective is to perpetuate the game to stay in the game as long as possible we are players in infinite games every day of our lives these are games that have no finish line mmm right there's no agreed-upon metrics there's no agreed upon rules there's no agreed-upon time frames there's no such thing as winners and losers like you can't be the winner in your marriage you can definitely be the loser yes it cannot be the winner yeah point there's no such thing as winning career like no one is declared the winner of careers right there's no such thing as winning global politics and there's no such thing as winning business there's no winner at business right but if we listen to people they talk about being number one being the best and beating their competition based on what right well we're number one based on the metrics and the timeframes of your own choosing yeah and even if you are number one you're only number one for now right yeah that doesn't last right because it's an infinite game there's no finish line right the game just keeps going and going and so when we view the other players as competitors it's a finite mindset because that means we want to beat them because that's what competitors are for right I want to be the winner I want them to be the loser hmm which is very unhealthy in games that have no finish lines like our career is like in business because when ends happenings we look for shortcuts we look to we are to our perspective becomes shorter and shorter timeframes and it ends up hurting trust cooperation and innovation you know people will sacrifice their integrity to get ahead short-term but then it's like well you have to keep oh you make a substandard product or the rest of it you know and we see play it out all the time you know we're seeing a playing out right now with Boeing right that was nothing short of short-term pressure well that made them make some stupid decisions right they were obsessed with making their numbers rather than obsessed with making the safest airplane in the sky terrifying yeah no it is terrifying yeah but that's how it plays out and it's a whole series of events that take place including ethical fading and all the rest of it where pressure put on somebody put pressure put on somebody put pressure on somebody adding an unhealthy incentive structures you end up with decisions being made all over the place that allow for this to happen you know leaders are responsible for that environment so they're the bucks does does stop somewhere and that's at the top is it is it the leader responsible for the environment or is it like hashtag capitalism right okay that's that's absolutely nonsense you know the there's nothing wrong with capitalism there is something wrong with the form of capitalism that we practice now you know Kadett capitalism as Adam Smith envisioned it is the capitalism that Thomas Jefferson believed and which is the capitalism that made America what it is today it's only the since about the 1970s that this form of capitalism has you know capitalism use become bastardized capitalism has always been about the people it's always been about the Zoomer right it's only in recently since the late 1970s a theory was proposed of shareholder supremacy which was popularized in the 80s and 90s by people like Jack Welch the CEO of GE you know that's a new idea shareholder supremacy Adam Smith could never have imagined that the idea of putting profit before a human being that's a new idea yeah the idea of using mass layoffs to balance the books on a regular basis didn't exist prior to the 1980s and all these didn't exist didn't exist so all of these insane ideas like rank and yank where you promote the top 10% of performers and fire the bottom 10% every year these are new ideas that were really popularized and promoted in the boom years of the 80s and 90s so people are blaming capitalism which is which is incorrect it's this form of capitalism that I think is the problem and they're the and the champions of this form of capitalism you know like Jack Welch you know and his and his disciples that that is the problem but capitalism isn't the problem it's the form of capitalism so the concept of you know viewing other companies or other individuals as competitors is really unhealthy I mean if you have a competitor at work that means you will undermine them so that you can improve fewer sales numbers that you can get the bonus like that's that's insane you work for the same organization and some company some leaders actually promote internal competition or share which is really bad for the organization so I like the term rival right and and some of the rivals are worthy of comparison they're worthy rivals and a worthy rival is another player in the game whose strengths reveal to you your weaknesses right in other words they're really good at something that makes you so uncomfortable sometimes even angry that you want to beat them that you hate them sometimes you have visceral responses but in reality it's because they're revealing something uncomfortable and it's easier to take that uncomfortable energy and direct it at them rather than looking at yourself right we've all had the experience where somebody we worked with at work got a promotion and we got mad yeah think about that for a second we're getting angry at somebody else's good fortune yeah look what what is it about that person that is touching a nerve inside us right that's a worthy rival and the and the whole point of worthy rivalry is to recognize these people you don't have to like you don't have to agree with them but you have to respect them to recognize these other people or organisations because their strengths reveal to us our weaknesses and our opportunity is to look at our weaknesses and build on them to work on them in other words it's a self-improvement exercise as individuals or as organizations you know and there were always other players in the game who are better than you you know always well yeah ideally otherwise you're really wasting your time and you because you get to pick your own worthy rivals if you just pick people that you constantly outperform well then you're gonna get caught totally by surprise because someone will come and swoop in right so I love this idea of the worthy rival and you asked at the top of the show about you know the other the other people you know I'm I intimidated you know you know am i competitive with some of the other remarkable yeah I was gonna ask you know about that folks out there and we were talking about Ken Robinson and the answer is no I learned from them if I had if I had a finite mindset I'd want to compete with them I want to get more gigs than them I want to get you know when I get higher profile gigs than them I want to do more TED Talks I want more views right based on what you know I can be all high and mighty about myself because you know I got more Instagram followers than they do well they go four times more Twitter followers than I do like what's the correct metric right it's ridiculous the whole thing is a fool's errand you just drive yourself nuts right and you can either make yourself feel proud because you want to look at the ones where your head or you make yourself depressed because you only look at the ones that you're behind and the answer is it doesn't matter which is what are they doing that's better than you that you have an opportunity to push your own game to advance yourself it's self-improvement so I would much rather view the other players in the game as worthy rivals rather than competitors that makes sense I noticed that before you'd mentioned or in the book you mentioned we can select these people strategically and that I think is it's simple but most people don't do that they just kind of look at whoever's in their orbit or whoever sits next to the office yeah or whoever's getting accolades that day and that's really unhealthy because if I'm just looking at whoever is showing up in my Instagram feed it's a constant ass-kicking that I'm giving myself not only that we don't know how they're doing it right I know for a fact because I get to see behind the scenes that there are people who gain the Amazon in New York Times bestseller Lafleur share right you can pay for a company to make you New York Times bestseller it's doable and if you look at the numbers behind the scenes you can see the ones who are doing it I know some of the names not gonna say all right of course I would and that kind of show why just it's it's a it's just I wouldn't do it right or Instagram I mean uh Amazon you know the number of emails I get that say hey everybody can you all please buy my book at the same time you know try and buy it because Amazon calculates it I think hourly and so if you get all your friends to buy your book in the same hour you can become number one in a category and then you screenshot it go home and then for the rest of time you're in Amazon number one bestseller you know or or you get all your friends to write fake reviews to drive your stars up because more stars means more book sales right there's millions of ways to game the system and so if I'm comparing myself to people who are gaming the system so I'm getting all insecure because I think that they're better than me but they're they're built in the house of cards anyway right it's they're better than you at emailing all their friends at the same time right or whatever so so so you have to be a little bit cynical even when you make the comparisons which is we don't actually know how people achieve their success you know some of them you know the ones that I admire are the ones that I legitimately I like them like I like I admire their work I admire their message but there's a there's a consistency like they're able to do it on a regular basis and when you meet them in person when you see them on a stage like they show up is exactly how you see them you know on a video or something and it's there's a there's a there's an authenticity to it and I those are the ones I respect those the ones I I really I choose to come to make my myself a worthy rival but those are the ones I choose to compare my craft but their craft and they're the ones who pushed me to become to be a better a better a better version of whatever I'm doing for people watching and listening how do we select healthy rivals in a healthy way or sorry how do we select worthy rivals in a healthy way you kind of touched on this but I would love some sort of prescriptive if you you know you know my my rule of thumb is the ones that make you uncomfortable you know like you hear their name and you go mm-hm you know or somebody mentions the other company you go well let me tell you the truth yeah we sort of you know let me tell you how they do it right you know the ones who their names constantly come up you know in your in your category and and little you like your fingernails are grinding the you know you know if there's an emotional response that's probably they're probably touching a nerve for a reason sometimes it's because they're worthy rivals yeah not always not always not always but I I think that's a good rule of thumb it's there's an introspection to be had here cuz there's definitely people where I go alright this person's a worthy rival because they show me that I should be reaching out for bigger names or better oh no no that's not it that's not how worthy robbery isn't you don't pick worthy rivals because their numbers are better than yours that that's that's the finite mindset because we're comparing metric to metric right right and there are arbitrary selections no no no that's the worthy rival we compare because they're their marketing is better than ours or their the gold standard like if you're in the airline business you really should be Southwest Airlines should definitely be one of your worthy rivals because everybody talks about and right here at Southwest Airlines you'd be insane to ignore that they're doing something right you don't have to do it the way that they do it but you have to pay attention that they're doing something you have to learn from them right if you're in in the smartphone business you know we cannot ignore the iPhone you just kind of know right now is it as incredible as it used to be it's debatable but but what got us here right there's something pretty remarkable about that so it's you know Netflix if you're in the TV or movie business you have to be looking at Netflix not by their numbers or their market caps or anything like this but there's something that they're doing that made them the gold standard there's something that they're doing that everybody uses them as the benchmark they should definitely be a worthy rival when you when when I'm paying individuals you can do that with individuals I was just gonna ask you that yeah what so you're not looking at metrics and it's so easy to get sucked into the metrics right that's so easy to go well Tim Ferriss has million downloads per episode I guess it's possible but then you're and that's great to get a little bit of like a expand your horizons and see what's a positive possibility for you what the market could possibly bear or whatever it is but that's kind of where that has to end because if you're just chasing the same number of subscribers you're gonna drive yourself crazy also isn't it better to have loyal subscribers rather than lots of subscribers for sure you know it's like profit versus revenue yeah you know our revenues are yeah but you're losing money hand over fist and the problem is when you have truly visionary companies like Amazon where they were able to lose money over the course of time because there was something bigger at play that Bezos understood and so now that's used as the reason we should sustain old loot money losing companies right you know well Amazon less money for you know it's like yeah yes Tesla losses yes but there's a much bigger vision at play that is not about their metrics by the way mm-hmm you know so we have to be very careful in those kinds of comparisons so you're talking about it's the same thing it's like I'd rather a company be small and profitable than then big and losing money you speak at a lot of companies and you you talk with I assume the head honchos at a lot of these companies some of them Amazon Tesla those are obvious winners what are some of the sort of silent killers where you're like wow these people really have it figured out but nobody's really talking about them or they're so small but wait five years because you have an inside look at a lot of these places so I think that I've written about some of them I mean I think that barry-wehmiller was run by a guy named Bob Chapman is an absolutely remarkable company and you know what I like is you know I've had the opportunity to really get to know Bob and he's become a dear friend and mentor and he he's written his own book the foreword by the way is fantastic I assume you wrote I did if you read nothing else just read the form just read the foreword no but the joking aside I mean Bob Baba's his company is one of those companies that we should be learning from but nobody really it's a funny name company barry-wehmiller we don't even had to spell it you know but uh but his work is really important and I'm glad that people now know more about who he is and about his honey there's a lot of companies that just do well that we know are good but we we don't study them enough I think what Kip Tindell built over a container store is very very special that from your book was so surprising because when I think of like businesses that seem incredibly boring it's the Container Store and whenever my wife's like I'm gonna go to the Container Store and get shelves to the garage I'm just like I I'm gonna go to the dentist and get a root canal yeah because I don't want to go you just have to feel that you're not an organized person clearly organized people like you know they love to continue that is like they're why I married Jenny like a container store yeah it's a good match it is a good match so so yeah no I know many people who container store is like it's like there for me is shangri-la for me I equate it with IKEA which I can't stand it's like a maze of like forced commerce again probably a brilliant bit so there goes the IKEA sponsorship yeah just in case they've come a-knockin I can learn to love IKEA you have a lot of IKEA things in my house IKEA going there it's pushing my boundaries and I like it it's a worthy rival exactly it's helping me be a better version of myself The Container Store though such an interesting example you wrote about this in infinite game where they well why don't you tell it better they basically hit the recession after growing 20 it's a very so these are the kind the reason I admire Kip Tindell and what he did is is what happened cannot be reproduced overnight it takes years to achieve what he achieved which is when the recession hit after as you said 20 percent compounded growth over the course of Maryland 30 years all of a sudden like everything plummeted by thirteen percent and they weren't used to that and so like many companies they looked at the cost-cutting because they had assists you know get through these these rough times but they did not lay off a single human being they did not look to look to layoffs as as the means to cost cut but what they did do is they went around the company and said okay here's what's gonna happen like we need to tighten the belts and they had some ideas and spontaneously people started taking it upon themselves to find more opportunities that was shocking I know and so for example some of them would take business trips and not submit their expense reports they would pay their own some of them would say they all debt they downgraded their hotels voluntarily they were not told to do it so they'd stayed in economy hotel versus a luxury hotel or it's not luxury but it but a nice hotel and they even called vendors and said can you help us out we need to cut costs on the vendor said sure right which is unheard of right why should your vendors cut their costs to help you save your money it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't make it doesn't make any sense and it's because of years and years and years of looking after their employees that their employees wanted to look after the company it's after years and years and years of treating their vendors with respect that the vendors wanted to pay back and it's a very human it's a very human thing you can't would they couldn't have done anything you there's no company that could have instructed their employees to downgrade their hotels or pay their own expenses business right and even if people were forced to do it the rumblings underneath would be furious and then as soon as times got better that come the people would look for ways to steal it back sure right even if they were stealing office supplies they would rationalize it well like they're forcing me I'm gonna take from them yeah but but there was this amazing sense of camaraderie and pride like we're gonna we're gonna figure this out together and again it's because they didn't use mass layoffs either they said we're not gonna sacrifice you to save this company but we're all gonna have to find ways and because it was spontaneous it worked and again you you couldn't do it overnight it takes years of it's I think think of it like friendship right friendship is not a balanced equation you don't you know nobody keeps a notebook of like all the things that I've done for you and all the things you've done for me it was like well I did 13 things for you last month and you've only done four for me this month like this friendship is not fair yeah it's not how friendship works right friendship is about equitable not equal the way I like to define equitable versus equal equal is I do the dishes you do the dishes I cook you cook I take out the garbage you take out the garbage that's equal mm-hm equitable is I'll cook you do the dishes I'll put the kids to bed you take out the garbage like it's equitable not equal we're not doing the same things but we both feel like we're contributing both feel like it's balance right and the same goes in a company with their equitable relationships which is we take care of the people it's like in friendship as I was saying which is a friend a friendship is not about equal number of things we do for each other if I could do 50 things for you and you do nothing for me but the reason I consider you a friend is because I have absolute confidence that the one time right I'm gonna need something I know you'll be there for me no matter what even if I never call it in right it's the confidence that you will right and that's what makes the friendship equitable that's what makes the friendship good and balanced and it's the same in a company which is when we take care of our people over and over and over again even though we may never ask them to sacrifice if it ever came to the point where we do they will because it's equitable because we've been taking care of them and we know that they'll be there for us right and so this is why you know a lot of companies you know they expect you know in hard times to just ask people to sacrifice and expect it to go well and it won't because you haven't been looking after the people for the past five years six years ten years when times were good right right so Kip Tindell is a very important CEO in in in in and founder of a company in the world today he was also very satisfied with being extremely profitable but necessarily being the biggest container store isn't is a reasonably relatively small company compared to a lot of other companies but very profitable very well-run very loyal employees very stable and so Kip always talked about how you'd rather have that then then then more revenues an arbitrary size you know open thousands of thousands of stores that don't make money just to say that you have more stories than everybody else it's funny how this shows up everywhere inside the business - Jen my wife loves going to the Container Store because she'll go during there one or two sales by these I don't know Italian Alfa whatever shelving Alfa Swedish so buy these these things they're amazing and then she'll go oh I bought the wrong thing or I bought too many and then she's like and then I got really busy and then we flew to wherever and I didn't return them and she'll call nobody like it's fine just bring them back and then the guy from the store will like help unload the car which is probably against every insurance regulation that they have but it's a nice thing to do when you're eight months pregnant and the reason that works is because The Container Store trusts their employees to use their own discretion right poorly led organizations people say things to I'm not allowed to do that it's against the rules all right I'm not allowed to do that I'll get in trouble like you're eight months pregnant and you got a heavy thing like I'd love to help you but I can I'll get in trouble right that that's that's a poorly led organization well that organization they know what the rules are we don't trust people to follow the rules we trust people to know when to break the rule and we hire good people when we take care of them and we build up their confidence and and and they know the rules and the rules are there for a normal operation and they're there but there's always an opportunity to break the rules because it's the right thing to do you know like I'll give you an example the both of these stories are true they're unrelated but they're both true in the US Air Force we have a very simple rule don't fly into Iranian airspace really simple yeah there was a kc-135 tanker that was in the region and they accidentally drifted into Iranian airspace right just drifted in completely unrelated completely separate incident there's another kc-135 tanker that was in the airspace and a fighter jet called bingo which means he ran out of gas and so they needed to get to him to refuel him in in-flight refuelling and they made the decision that the quickest way to get to him was to just slice through a little corner of Iranian airspace and the crew made that choice knowing that they could get in trouble too because it broke the rules to slice through the Iranian airspace right now if we if we treated everybody the same just based on the rulebook both of those crews would have been punished which later on produces some serious problems because then if there's another crew and there's a plane in trouble will they be too afraid for fear of getting trouble to cut through in your new space now in real life what happened is only one of those crews got in trouble which is the idiots who drifted into Iranian airspace right but the crews who made the choice to break the rules because it was the right thing to do to get to a pilot who was out of gas that's what I'm talking about that's discretion we trust people to make their decisions and we trust people not to follow the rules we trust people to know when the right time to break them right so yes for insurance reasons we can't help everybody take all their stuff curbside whatever it is but there's someone pregnant there's something heavy you know what I'm gonna break this rule yes it's the right thing to do the right thing to do and and and a good leader will look at that and understand their intentions and may not agree let's say I understand and it's fine right and so there's but you're doing it for everyone that now you have an insurance problem again we don't trust people to know to follow rules we trust people to know when to break them and that's called discretion and the best organizations give their frontline employees the discretion to make decisions you know the founder of the ritz-carlton said my lowest paid employees have all the contact with my customer so if you're not giving if you're not treating this frontline people well and you're not giving them discretion you have a terrible terrible brand no matter how great your executive ranks are and we've seen this a thousand times we've all had really bad experiences there are even companies that we quote-unquote don't like because of our experience with them but if you meet their leadership their leadership is wonderful sure right except for the fact that it's not filtering down it happens on a regular basis so it's it's a reason to admire Container Store yeah I think you could really see this in businesses that are run well and it's hard to say if it's something like Apple where you know can be hit or miss but usually you walk in there and the people at the retail locations it's Thanksgiving rush everyone should theoretically be miserable and angry and they almost can't wait to help you well once you break them out of their little click conversations or whatever I understand they're on their feet all day they they're kind of excited to show you something in the photo app and you're just like how on earth do you build fans among your employees that are so interested in helping somebody on Black Friday Angela Ernst who was the head of Apple retail until recently gets a lot of the credit for that and she was the former CEO of Burberry as well who was responsible for the big Burberry turnaround and Angela you know would be there offered all kinds of benefits to the frontline employees if you were a full-time retail employee you the opportunity to stock option opportunity is like HQ employees you got the same health care benefits as HQ employees you got twenty five hundred dollars in outside education opportunity which the company would reimburse you for wow you know all these amazing perks that are usually reserved for folks who work at headquarters but these are frontline full-time retail employees they usually are treated differently yeah and her attitude was they're full-time employees we should treat them like all full-time employees so they gave them all the same benefits right so of course the first thing that goes through people's mind is that must cost we couldn't do that at Casa fort no wonder my iphone Ashok's exactly yeah so Angela actually ran the numbers and what she discovered is that the cost to take care of these people was net zero because it was offset by the savings as because they had so little turnover they had a much smaller recruiting department because they weren't constantly cousin constantly hiring new frontline retail people and training them and training and losing product and mostly most shoplifting happens by employees you know the numbers that I've heard are astonishing that the average retail story suffers ten percent losses from shoplifting most of which is by employees I know it's astonishing but if you look at the best-laid organizations your apples and Lululemon's another one they suffer like two and three percent shoplifting numbers like they're much much lower because people just you take care of me we take care of you right and and so what Angela found out was the reduced recruiting costs and reduced you know not to mention the fact that it's hard to train somebody up every single few months get the kind of quality and knowledge basically the same the the net the net spend was zero right was zero and so when other companies say we can't afford to do that and by the way this is not just because apples a high price retailer you know I was right yeah I mean Costco does the exact same thing Costco takes care of their frontline employees extremely well and their net net net expense on that is also zero Wow because of the additional savings on the back end not to mention which number which you can cannot calculate is just the improved quality of customer service you know that plays to customer loyalty and all the rest of it here we are singing the praises of Apple right Costco simply because of employee treatment you know the way yeah employees because I can tell you some terrible stories of companies as well and you and I go on the air and tell terrible stories as well you know so you know those are those are numbers that are hard to calculate yeah and I would imagine that a lot of executives who are thinking internet terms playing finite games they're reporting well we're gonna lose money but if we lay off 3,000 people it looks like we made a profit and then they just don't necessarily on the back end go crap we got our rehire 3,000 people knocks two years I tell you one of my favorite stories I was flying Air Canada and I was flying from Toronto to New York so short flights like know what he minute played and you know customs is on that side and so you have to get to the airport really early because who knows how long the lines will be at customs and so we got there super early and it went really quickly we got through really quickly we were there early enough to get on the earlier flight so I went up to the gate a just said hey I got here early do you have any seats on the earlier flight so I get back to I can get back home earlier and she said yeah we do I said fantastic can I please there's two of us can I can we please get on this plane can we get on this plane and she went like this and said yes it'll cost $500 each yeah I was like look whether you put me on the plane or not put me on the plane I'm not paying $500 to get on a flight one hour earlier right for a 40-minute flight like it's never gonna happen that's ridiculous yeah and I was like but it maybe you could it's going to the same Airport like I'm not changing my route my changing anything I just got here early you have empty seats can I please get on it right away this is something that every airline in the world will do yeah I know yeah and she said well we have to charge you I said just so I understand you are okay sending two empty seats back to New York because you're you're so intent on making this $500 a ticket which I'm not paying I'd rather just wait right so you're not gonna get the money either way you're not getting the money right so you're okay knowing that you won't get the money sending two empty seats back instead of making the customer happy right and she lately important sit sir this is a business and and what would hit ya Wow that didn't come from her now no frontline employee is gonna lean into a customer and be sir this is a business that came from her manager and her manager was told that and that manager was told that and that manager was told that so all the way through the line people were trying to do the right thing and somebody stopped them from doing the right thing right and we're told this is a business that trickled down from up on high right that did not come from her no of course not she doesn't she has no doubt now look what's happening not only did they not get my $500 because I waited my hour but here I am talking about we're trashing their Khanna's haribol customer service and Air Canada and it's Canada that's double worse there so now I don't know if they've changed their policy since yeah a few years ago I don't believe they have now why would that and I believe you need like an executive status to like get on a flight early or something yeah but but but my point is is it's not it's it's a it's okay to have the rule there it's okay to charge the fee and all of this and all you know I don't have an issue with that it's that this employee had no discretion to break the rule cuz she decided this is the right thing to do to take care of a customer and the seats are empty anyway right she had no discretion she felt she had no discretion and that's the problem cuz everybody knows the right thing to do you know it doesn't require excessive amounts of training to know this is fair and that's unfair right right and that was the problem the problem wasn't the fact that it's a business and the problem wasn't it's that this is a leadership problem not an employee problem I do not blame her right I blame her manager and her managers manager and her managers manager manager and however many managers I can go up the chain of command and the hierarchical in the hierarchy that somebody denied their employees that the of the discretion to do the job they've been trained to do there's all these and we suffer right the company suffers sure and the employee suffers she probably goes home and goes yeah she doesn't look good I have their friggin deal with this I guarantee you she doesn't like knock her job I I mean I saw it happened it was the same airline which is I was walking up to the counter and you know you have to check in an hour before the flight right and it was it was 59 the stop know right 59 min okay right and I was like just made it I screamed out as I'm approaching the check again I I saw the supervisor standing next to the person either I heard I literally saw them lean over and say don't let him on and then what did you not I kid you not 59 minutes right so it it took some wrangling they let me on the plane but you've got to be kidding me that's right insane again I don't blame that supervisor yeah I blame the chain of command that creates an environment in which people not only are what happens as the employers are treated so badly that they then treat customers bad because they they want there was an element of they wanted to do that because they every day they have it stuck to them and [ __ ] rolls downhill right and then we're so 99 times at 100 if if and I'm talking there's always exceptions there's always good companies that sometimes treat each others badly and bad company sometimes treat customers well but consistently if there's regularly bad service almost always it's because they're sticking it to the employees and the employees are sticking it to us the reason employees really want to take care of us is because usually those employees really feel taken care of sure and it's the same companies the companies that we celebrate the way they treat their employees tend to have remarkably good customer service Costco Southwest Airlines Container Store they tend to have an amazing customer service not because they train people how to do amazing customer service it's because they look after their people and the people are happy to look after us it's not a complicated formula yeah you know I man it's it burns to hear that because it seems so simple I'm not a I'm not an upper management in Air Canada however looking at Southwest and having the people at the check-in gate doing their little rap they didn't go okay it's Friday so you can wrap the safety rules if you want to right it's not office space so they just go do which one do what you want as long as it's sort of completely well the rule the FAA rules are is that you have to do it and have to and it has to be you have to be able to understand it legible boy or whatever the order yeah what do you version yeah I was trying to particular I don't know what it is yeah anyway it eligible intelligible thank you and you have to do it and it has to be intelligible but the FAA does not instruct how you do it and so Southwest requires their people to do it they take it upon themselves and how they do it and it makes us all actually listen most of us don't look up or take our headphones out for the safety announcement worse the number of employees that push a recording so we've really zoned it's not even a human being writing to us Regan it's a recording right which is the most impersonal thing in the world right my favorite one is you know a recording that comes on that says ladies don't please put your seat belt on a recording like for every nervous flyer out there there's nothing more beautiful then I really relaxed captain coming on going you know uh ladies don't come the flight deck a little bit of chop for the next ten minutes and dangerous you just put your seatbelts up on please and we'll be out of this and ten minutes I mean amazing this is a recording that comes on and says seatbelts you know strap yourself and you may die and the point is it's nothing to do with good bad right wrong it's that it one is personal and what is impersonal and when we treat people like human beings the whole process becomes human when we treat people like robots are like numbers the whole process becomes inhuman and it's it's and in this day and age you know Humanity is something we're struggling to find you know deep meaningful relationships seem to become more and more elusive and just human connection becomes so wonderful and so valuable that we we can build it into to other places we can we can we can build it in why is it that you that you have to be an elite passenger or or a gold platinum you know banker banking you know customer with a bank that when you call a customer service number the human being picks it right you know nobody wants to listen to the recording we all hit zero zero zero zero zero anyway you know like when when did talking to a human being become a status or a luxury that should be a basic thing and they do it because they save money they save money and at the same time they actually are creating burden let it a I mean you know I'm okay with the electronic step for really basic stuff is my flight on time mmm-hmm you know most of us go online to change our seats you know but I think a lot of the time from for a lot of people when we call it's because we can't do it online like we're stuck we're stuck you know that's why I'm calling or or there's something unusual or I need and I need some advice to work this through you know so I think the organizations that really under stay in that connecting somebody with a human being even though there might be an additional cost on the call center side pays dividends on the back end which company or organization do you think is exhibiting finite thinking instead of playing an infinite game and whose reckoning is on the horizon and I'm worried you're gonna say the United States but well I mean you know you know organizations the organization's go in and out of it you know and especially when there's succession when there's when there's different leaders right and so because some leaders are more infinite and some leaders are more finite and if an organization is rich it can usually sustain a finite leader for a period of time you know but hopefully successive leaders will be infinite otherwise that organization will eventually go out of business right so there have been organizations that have gone in and out of it so Walmart's a great example Walmart definitely was infinite when Sam Walton ran it and a couple of the CEOs who followed after Sam Walton definitely were infinite minded trying to advance the cause of the common average American in a working America and then you had a guy by the name of Mike Duke who was that the previous CEO not the current CEO who was much more finite driven much more numbers driven carried much more about short-term results cared much more about lining his pockets than taking care of his people and Walmart suffered as a result we used to rally for Walmart and love Walmart then we started hating Walmart and wanting them outside of out of our neighborhoods you know and the company might have done okay in the short term but it did a lot of long-term damage to employee into the customer which really made the company much harder to run Doug McMillon came in he's the new CEO he's way more infinite minded you know under under Steve Ballmer well Microsoft which was an infinite minded company for many years under gates really became very excessively focused on short-term results and financial results trying to beat Apple as opposed to just trying to be the best version of themselves and advance their their cause of helping people be more productive Satya Nadella the new the new CEO at Microsoft is way more infinite minded so the good news is those companies had a lot of money to sustain through through a finite minded period some organizations are not as lucky I mean Lehman Brothers is a great example oh yeah they went bankrupt look at he split yeah you know and a lot of those companies that sort of hit the skids pretty early pretty quickly rather but you know the company's going in and out of it and and and and I think a lot of the companies that we struggle with we have problems with their ethical decisions odds are very high that they've become very finite minded you usually companies that we question their ethics and I don't mean every company has ethical lapses but when it becomes a recurring theme you know Facebook is a prime example just gonna ask about yeah you know they they were an infinite minded company when they started in Zuckerberg really had every opportunity to become one of the great leaders in American business today and I don't know what happened you know the the company became more obsessed with its business model than it did with advancing a cause it uses its cause to justify decisions rather than you know looking for ways and they and they and they and they they seem more protective of their business model and so all of these questionable ethical decisions they make over and over and over again it's not one ethical lapse it's a series of ethical lapses you know it seems that the company has just really become much more finite focused which is which is a real shame can it can it come out of it of course of course like any individual I know many leaders who who were very finite minded and they became Bob Chapman who I now rave about he was one of those finite minded leaders for many many years and he had a he had an epiphany and he became pretty remarkable he's become a pretty remarkable leader as a result of that that transformation so you know it doesn't mean everything is lost but you know I yearn for these for these leaders to to refine that infinite vision that helped them build their companies into what they are today and go back to go back to that even if it means struggling in the short term to to get there or to find it business a new business model you know that it'll make the company more sustainable in the long term beyond the lifespan of all these founder leaders I think a lot of people think I can't do that or our company can't do that because it'll hurt profit then you look at somebody like The Container Store or Patagonia who says we're gonna investigate all the labor and the people that make the jackets and then suddenly your friends are shaming you for wearing the other brand that has I don't know human trafficking is part of the process yeah and the answer is let's not let's not kid ourselves yeah it will hurt profit in the short term but over the long term it's the right thing to do you know it's like going to the gym well it hurts yeah when you start going to the gym it really really hurts and you don't see results for a while yeah but you kind of have to stick with it and it's the right thing to do it's the same thing you know yes it's gonna hurt and yes there's gonna be struggle but if you've been taking care of your people the people will hunker down and go through the hard times with you because it's the right thing to do you know Kodak is one of the prime examples of an organization that that couldn't change their business model you know they invented the digital camera in 1975 they a lot of them will notice Kodak invented the digital camera but they were but they were too worried that the digital camera would steal market share from film sales right which they were filming chemical and paper company that they literally suppressed the technology and they made billions of dollars not millions billions of dollars from the royalties they got from the light the hands the patents they owned so other companies were actually using kodak technology as the digital revolution started to show up so your nikons and your Fugees we're actually using kodak technology and when those patents ran out five years later Kodak was bankrupt right it's mind-blowing effect and yet on paper Wall Street was hailing them as healthy and good and strong just cuz the income the income sheet look good but it was built on it was built on it on unquestionable foundations right what would have been more responsible and very difficult was to transform the company company into a digital company knowing that the end of paper and chemicals and developing was nigh and the film was nine and and it absolutely would have hurt profits and it absolutely would have hurt revenues and it absolutely would have put the company through a short term stress but they would have done it and Kodak may have been the digital camera to the digital company today where we would be demanding the phone that had the codec technology like we just don't know but that would have been the right thing to do instead they went bankrupt you got to be kidding me and the worst part is every single one of those executives that made those decisions had long retired when Kodak went bankrupt which means that all of them got their fat bonuses because the company was making tons of money right and literally left the company in a shambles after they left and Baird no responsibilities and Baird no no consequences because of it and that's finite thinking and it's scary when you extrapolate that out to current world politics or any sort of like macroeconomic decision and you go wait a minute aren't we doing that in a lot of areas we do that you know we look for the short-term gains cuz there's political advantages just like we look for short-term gains because it helps me get my bonus at the end of the year but there are long-term consequences there's a cost for every decision we make and I think people forget that sometimes the cost comes in money and sometimes the cost comes in in other things but there's a cost for every decision we make and and not not all the costs are worth the money we make Simon thank you this is interesting as expected Thank You Jordan good to see you [Music]

Channel: THE JORDAN HARBINGER SHOW

Views: 2,396

Rating: 4.9245281 out of 5

Keywords: podcast, interview, best podcast, top rated podcast, lifelong learning, the jordan harbinger show, jordan harbinger, soft skills, social science, social influence, social psychology, personal development, self development, podcast full episode, simon sinek, simon sinek podcast, simon sinek interview, the infinite game, infinite game, simon sinek infinite game, start with why, find your why, jordan harbinger simon sinek, mastery, success, professional development, sinek

Id: RNyM-h2KKko

Length: 69min 18sec (4158 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020