Best Simon Sinek MOTIVATION (2.5 HOURS of Pure INSPIRATION)

in the mid-1980s a philosopher and theologian by the name of Dr James karst to find 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 football baseball there's always a beginning middle and an end and if there is a winner then necessarily there have to be losers then you have infinite games infinite games are defined as known and unknown players which means you don't necessarily know who all the other players are and new players can join at any time the rules are changeable which means every player can play however they want 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 whether we know it or not there's no such thing as winning education you can come in first for the finite amount of time you're at school where we agree upon the time frame and the metrics grades but nobody wins education nobody wins health care nobody wins global politics and there's definitely no such thing as winning business hey it's Evan Carmichael and I make these videos because in my first business I struggled to stay afloat I quit I'm a business partner and the thing that kept me motivated kept me going was studying the stories of famous successful entrepreneurs and in their stories it gave me the hope the drive the ambition the thinking that maybe I can do it too that extra bit of belief and I still need their stories today and I'm honored to share them with you here as well so today let's get some incredible motivation from the one and only Simon steinek enjoy but if we listen to the language of so many leaders it becomes abundantly clear that they don't actually know the game that they're playing in they talk about being number one or being the best or beating their competition oh we said that too yeah oops okay but the question is the question is the question is based on what based upon what agreed upon objectives metrics and time frames clearly your competitors the other players in the game haven't agreed to your metrics time frames uh or you know or objectives nobody's agreed what winning looks like you know and so this is a problem because when we play with a finite mindset in an infinite game when we play to win in a game that has no Finish Line there are some very predictable and consistent outcomes the big ones are the decline of trust the decline of cooperation and actually the decline of innovation and so there's a great irony in companies that are trying to reinvent themselves and stay ahead of the curve while Simon simultaneously trying to beat their competition and win and be the best those two are incongruent right um uh I'll give you an example a silly example um when Circuit City went bankrupt Best Buy didn't win anything right it didn't win anything there's nothing their number one competitor fell out of the game because they ran out of the will and resources to play but Best Buy didn't win anything they had to keep playing in fact with the rise of Amazon the entire rules of how they played the game had to change and so the reality is is when you play with an infinite mindset you play Not To Beat anyone but ultimately you play uh the only true competitor is yourself which is how do we make our products better this year than what they were last year how do we make our services better this year than they were last year how do we make our culture stronger this year than it was last year and it's a game of constant constant Improvement but there's no such thing as winning if we don't have a sense of purpose then you're doing the thing you're doing just for the sake of doing it right like I'm making money just for the sake of money I'm I'm I'm I'm doing I'm turning this wrench just for the sake of turning this wrench and when when we when we do things that contribute to something else contribute to something bigger it gives our lives and our work meaning and when we have a sense of meaning when we have a sense of purpose it does many many things to us it builds our self-confidence it makes us better decision makers it makes us better in relationships and at the end of the day it makes us enjoy our lives and find fulfillment in my work in in our work um and I think so often um you know and I think there's a a lot of a lot of people don't think about it this way way they don't think about what's the purpose of all of this what's the reason I'm doing all of this we usually default to I got to pay my bills that's a function you know um because I was told to do it because everybody has to work or because I'm just trying to I want to make this company the biggest or the best to what end so what to what value um and so to truly understand purpose um I think like I said it sort of just just has positive effects all over the place what is that Optimist mindset means so I think there's a great misunderstanding of what optimism and what an optimist is um you know I think people think optimism and blind positivity are the same thing and they're not blind positivity everything's good everything's fine everything's good which a lot of leaders think they have to do they think they have to be positive all the time to keep their team motivated inspired and the reality is it actually backfires because when we're going through stress we actually and we see our leader always positive always positive we think there's something wrong with us it actually backfires optimism is different um optimism is not naive optimism is very realistic of optimism is the undying belief that the future is bright and we can be in a dark tunnel and say these are hard times and I do not know how long we will be here but I do not know how far away that light is but I know that if we work together we will come out of this better than we went in optimism again is about the future but it is it is absolutely accepting of difficulty and stress in the current day there's a great story of two two Lumberjacks where every morning they start chopping wood at the same time and every day they stop chopping wood at the same time and every day one of The Lumberjacks disappears for about an hour in the middle of the day and every day he chops more wood than the other guy and this goes on for months and eventually the one who works all day says I don't understand every day we start at the same time every day we stop at the same time every day you disappear for about an hour in the middle of the day and every day you Chuck more wood than me where do you go for that hour and the other Lumberjack looks up and goes oh we'll go home and sharpen my ax you know that that if you if you take an infinite mindset it's not about how much you can get done each day it's how much you can get done over the course of a career over the course of a lifetime and and you you got to take vacations which means you turn off your email and you turn off your phone and you do not connect to the office you know go sharpen your ax like you do you take a Friday afternoon off you know we have something called duvet days in in our company where uh um where it's you wake up in the morning and you just can't do it and it's not like asking you know it's not like vacation days where you plan ahead and it's not like sick days you know where you're you're actually sick like you're not sick you just you just don't want to do it or I'm just not feeling it today I'm just not feeling it and you just you can do it and you do responsibly you can't leave your team in the Lurch obviously you know we you have to exercise um responsible freedom but we give people an opportunity instead of lying and pretending that they have a stomach bug um because they just can't face the day that they can just call up and say I'm I'm taking a duvet day and everybody goes go go we got you you know go also to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video the worksheet will highlight all of the Lessons Learned in this video as well as pull out our three favorite learnings and quotes that will inspire you to actually do something the worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results if you want the worksheet design specifically for this video absolutely for free there's a link in the description below go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business I'll see you there I can tell you what I went through which is what set me on the journey um to sharing the message of the why and and uh helping people find theirs um a why is like a is like a it's like a compass Direction it tells you where you're going um we can live our lives by accident which is kind of like getting in a ship and just sailing or getting in a car and just driving you'll absolutely see some amazing things you'll stumble and upon some amazing experiences but you don't really have a sense of where you're going any sort of Direction in other words what's it all for what the why does is it provides a path it provides a map or a compass so you will still have some of those amazing experiences but now they have value and worth and they're taking you towards something else it's a journey towards something when I learned my why um I had this tremendous calm come over me a sense of my confidence grew um a sense that my life had more meaning than I thought it had before and I had now the choice um new way of viewing decisions a filter through which to make decisions which now I would ask myself does this help Advance my why or not does this help me stay on the path that I'm supposed to be on or is this going to be a random a random Adventure so the Y provides Focus Direction meaning and and confidence we already talked about great leaders or students of leadership you know how is your how's your how's your journey you know do you watch the talks read the books all the things like that who's your leadership buddy somebody who who sort of willing to call you out when something goes goes a little bit rare they disagree how'd I do today was that okay you know to have a an objective Outsider having a leadership buddy is really important or a group of folks that you talked on a regular basis about it that's huge I have a group of people that I talked on a regular basis where we just call each other and talk about this stuff or tell each other things that go right and things that go wrong the stuff that I've learned just from them telling me stuff huge um empathy practicing that empathy muscle is a big one right I said it multiple times before which is trying very very hard to replace judgment with curios curiosity catching yourself where you're immediately like they're an idiot they screwed up they got it wrong right to I wonder what else is going on or I wonder what happened or let me go on a fact-finding mission before I come to a conclusion right those are things that are they're they're they're they're simple but they're hard but you can do it tomorrow the other big one is checking in with your folks like having one-on-ones and just being like how are you like tell me what's going on like what's going on in your life you know and I know especially in a paramilitary organization my chismo guns you know all of this kind of stuff but to to have conversations that are a little bit raw a little bit vulnerable you know like people have challenges in their lives they've got kids who are struggling they've got kids who are struggling through covid they've got family who's sick like all of this stuff comes to work you know and having safe spaces and just checking in with people one of the best Chiefs that I know every year he does a listening tour of his whole organization you could just do it for your team because hour-long one-on-one conversations just to listen not solve anything what can you know how is it going how's you how's the job what can we do better and he just listens and it's this hugely cathartic experience but he gets tremendous amounts of learning about what he can do better and what the organization can do better and just knowing his people like the names of their spouses the name of their kids things like that make people feel seen and heard you could do that tomorrow when we feel safe amongst our own the natural reaction is trust and cooperation when we do not feel safe amongst our own the natural reaction is cynicism paranoia and self-interest so the question is how do you create a circle of safety as it turns out the human body is built the exact same way as any organization if we want to direct the behavior of people inside our organization what do we do we develop all sorts of incentive systems we give them a Target we give them a goal we offer some sort of bonus and what do people do they work towards the goals that we set we direct their behavior it works perfectly effectively it's worked the same way with children we give them gold stars and we get them to do the things that we want it works perfectly fine inside the human body are certain incentives that work exactly the same way and if you've ever had a feeling of Pride status accomplishment love trust friendship loyalty all of these feelings that I'll generically call happiness are basically produced by four chemicals inside our bodies they are endorphins dopamine serotonin and oxytocin edso every single feeling that we basically know is happiness is controlled by these four chemicals and what they're trying to do is incentivize us to get us to repeat behaviors at an hour that are in our best interest in other words to get us to cooperate to get us to trust it is our natural disposition to want to trust and cooperate and we're always looking for it which is why this sense of belonging is so powerful we're always seeking out people who are like us we want to be next to people who are like us call your friends you love the ones who you know that if you call them at three o'clock in the morning they would answer the phone and if they called you at three o'clock in the morning you would be there for them do not do this with family do not do this with siblings do not do this with your spouse it doesn't work those relationships are too close do it with the friends you love and ask them the simple question why are we friends and they're going to look at you like you're crazy because the part of the brain that controls feelings and behavior doesn't control language in other words it's hard to put into words ironically you stop asking the question why because the question why is an emotional question and it elicits emotional responses like you ask your kids why are you home late shut up Dad but if you say what were you doing that you're home late I'll answer the question right so you after your friends say I don't why are you asking me this you switch to what questions come on what is it about me what specifically is it about me that I know that you would be there for me no matter what and they're going to hem and Han it's going to be very difficult for them and they're going to struggle don't help them don't let anybody else help them you have to let them go through the uncomfortable process and you have to play Devil's Advocate so they'll say things like I don't know you're funny you're smart I can rely on you and you say good that's the definition of a friend you have that with all your friends what specific specifically is it about me that I know you would be there for me no matter what and they're going to go through this process of and you're going to say good that's the definition of a close friend what you're going to keep keep at them and eventually they'll give up eventually they'll give up and they'll stop describing you and they'll start describing themselves and this is what my friend said to me they said I don't know Simon all I know is that I can just sit in a room with you I don't even have to talk to you and I feel inspired and I got goosebumps in fact I'm getting them right now right so what they did is they articulated my value in their lives and I had an emotional response so you'll get to the point where they'll say something that you will either get goosebumps or you're well up with tears or something will happen you will have an emotional response that's the part of the brain the Olympic brain that controls those emotions you won't get the exact words of your why but you'll get in the ballpark and my friends what you'll find is if you do it with multiple friends you'll get very similar if not the exact same answer because the value you have in their lives is the same it's you so that's a fun way to find your why I think people make they create a dichotomy a false dichotomy that they have to either choose service or individual success right that those two are somehow mutually exclusive um and that service means uh living a a life of suffering um right which is nonsense um and and then you hear these silly these silly uh um sort of uh uh projections like I'm gonna do well so that I can do good so I'm gonna put myself first and then eventually I'll do good for others you know a a friend of mine who's a a philanthropist someone came to him for advice on philanthropy and this was a former CEO of a very large company and um um and my friend asked him so what what are you most proud of in your philanthropy and he said well you know we started this charity in the inner city where we help kids uh go on to college and he said that's amazing you know how many kids have you helped he said 15 he says is that the proudest thing you've done you know in your life he says yeah I'm really proud and my friend said so let me understand this you're proud of 15 kids you helped go to college meanwhile you destroyed the lies of the 60 000 people who worked for you you know um uh like that's that's what happens when you uh do well so that you can do good you put yourself at the center of the equation and then eventually you'll try and even the the scale so you can feel good before you die um um and the uh and and the reality is the opposite is true do well uh sorry do good and you can also do well right um but doing good should not be something that we save for our retirement um doing good is something that we can do every day and and and and and it's remarkably easy I mean what your neighbor did for you just by looking out his window was good saying hello asking somebody how are you and actually caring about the answer saying please and thank you you know I mean these are very very little things that cost nothing that make other people um feel like you saw them that they matter that they're that they exist um and that that is that is a that is all steps we take to to doing good and of course it can it can it can grow from there it can scale from there why do you think start with why that message you know and the talks around it the the the idea as well as the book why do you think that resonated so deeply I think it's it goes back to being a little kid right like you tell your kids something you know whether you're trying to discipline them you have to do this or teach them a lesson or teach them values or explain how the world works you know and what's the first question they all ask why why because and the worst thing you can say is because I said so correct they want explanation and I don't think that ever goes away I think for some reason as adults we just either stop asking the question out loud and just accept that for some reason we have to just do as we're told um and um I think that question is an it's an inherently human question we want to know why we want to know where we come from we want to know what our roots are we want to know why the world works we want to know why the sun comes up and the sun goes down you know like we these are these are not new questions yeah and and we're we're as a as a species as a you know we're constantly searching for re for explanation and the most confounding things are things that seem to lack explanation um then we have debates we can't just accept you know um and so uh I I think when when when you so publicly ask the question why about a very difficult thing like why do I do what I do why do I get out of bed in the morning and why should anyone care right I think that pulls on the heartstrings of pretty much everyone a finite game is known players fixed rules and agreed upon objective football baseball there's always a beginning middle and an end and if there is a winner necessarily they have to be losers then you have infinite games infinite games are defined as known and unknown players which means new players can join anytime and you don't necessarily know who all the other players are the rules are changeable which means every player can play however they want and the objective is to perpetuate the game to stay in the game as long as possible companies come and go and yet the game continues with you or without you and there's no such thing as winning nobody wins business it doesn't exist but if you listen to the language of too many leaders it becomes abundantly clear they don't always know the game they're playing in they talk about being number one or being the best or beating their competition based on what you know and I love it when Executives come to me and say you know we are number one and I always say for now you know um and so and so um the idea of building a company that can survive every single employee in this room after you've long gone and that that company remains true to its purpose um is a very very powerful thing a great example is right outside the front door you know the Walt Disney Company um you know the purpose that Disney founded and they've they've gone through you know trials and tribulations for sure um ins and outs but for the most part you know when they are at their natural best they are they hearken back to their founding purpose and I love that I love that uh you know you ask me is it essential I mean depends on what kind of company you want to run um if you want a company that that can continue to innovate and set set the course for what business should look like Define what Innovation looks like in your industry long before you're all you know long after you're all gone then build that company but if you want to build a company that just um sucks the life out of people who work there and does damage the in you know to the industry all the name of it does damage to the the communities in which we work all in the name of short-term gains you can build that company too and it'll come at a much steeper cost um in terms of Love loyalty you know Etc et cetera so when my career was just getting going uh and I was a speaker uh which by the way was not my chosen career I fell into it um uh there is a I forgot the name of the organization I think it's called The Meeting Planners Association of America something like that where basically all the people from all the corporations and conferences who hire the speakers like that's their job they have their own conference and so to get invited to this thing is like it's like American Idol like yeah like if you do well you get a career for the rest of your life because everyone in the room will want to hire you for their conferences for the rest of years and if you if you bomb they all know who you are and you will have no career right like that's like I've done this a bunch now I'm you know I'm relaxed on stage now you know I got this you know and like this is one of those events that makes every speaker nervous and uh and it's in this cavernous Place ironically it's like the worst venue it was like it echoed so you'd stand on the stage talking you could hear yourself anyway during my talk I'm doing start with Y is back in the early days I got this you know done this a million times and don't know what happened I lost my train of thought okay I I know this I've been through this from before so I went quiet you usually find my place and then I pick up again like I know how to do this I've lost my train of thought before I went quiet and nothing happened like nothing came into my mind I had nothing and now I panicked and as soon as the Panic sets in now now all rational thought disappears and now I start sweating and my heart starts pounding and I got nothing I got nothing and I look at my pad and I look at the audience and I look at my pad and I look at the audience and then I turn to them and say have you ever had that feeling where you forget what you're talking about and everything collapses your hearts and your stomach your hearts pounding you start sweating your hands get clammy and sheer panic and they're all smiling I go I said I'm having that right now I said I said and I gotta tell you it feels fantastic I said because I do this so much sometimes I forget to be present and I said right now I feel completely alive I said I feel totally present and totally with this it's as much as I is as crazy it is this is amazing I said okay I need someone's help can somebody please tell me what I was just talking about because I do not know what I was talking about and they all erupted in Applause I got more Applause for that than for the actual speech but the point is the point is is that in every so in every cloud there is a silver lining in everything that happens to us there is goodness the part of the maturation of your work is and a pretty clear the mission of you know helping people rather than always you know the over almost the over consumption of self-help right so the framework of your own company just give me a a second on that and how you're looking to move that needle yeah so there's an entire section in the Bookshop called self-help but there's no Bookshop there's no section the Bookshop called help others um and I think that's the thing we're missing you know I I think since the 1970s when the self-help industry began it it's done very well for itself um uh uh and the question is is it's it has taught us a skill but it's it's also teaching us to to be preoccupied with ourselves and I think as social animals one of the things we've forgotten is we also need to learn to help each other and if you look at some of the challenges that plague us today whether it's disengagement at work or loneliness at home or struggle to find the job we love or funding find the relationship that we love you know uh all of those things the antidote to all of those things is another human being um and the our ability to help somebody else find the thing that they're looking for actually is uh actually gives us the thing we're looking for uh and I'm living proof of that it's when I learned when I learned the value of service everything that I wanted to feel everything that I wanted to achieve started to fall in place only when I learned to to serve others first the best leader is actually the best follower is even if they're at the highest levels of the organization they're still in service right it may not be to a person but to a cause an idea a vision whatever it is there's still some sort of something that they're beholden to and they're devoted to and they're in service to um so so followership is a thing um and um not to belabor the Marine point but uh you know Marines when they evaluate their leaders they're looking good for good leadership and good Fellowship so for example there when you go through OCS officer candidates uh School selection um uh when somebody's a for a task you know chosen to be the leader of that group for that task the the Marines are watching the others as well so they're looking to see that everybody's contributing ideas and they're looking to see that that leader takes in those ideas but is decisive and and they're looking to see that the the members of the group if their idea isn't picked they still give their all to see that that the leader's idea is successful and if it fails give it their all to pick up the pieces and see what they can do as opposed to going I told you right should have gone my way right I was right or sabotaging because their idea didn't get picked so they go all in so so good followership is is as important as good leadership that that we we respect that that um when a decision is made we will we will give our Blood Sweat and Tears to see that the decision our leaders have made will be successful and if it fails we will help pick up the pieces because that's the deal the U.S marine told me the first Criterion for being a leader is you have to want to be one um and if you look at the way the Marines select their leaders select their officers it's a it's different than than with their enlisted core so if you enlist in the Marine Corps you go to Paris Island in the East or you go to San Diego in the west to to boot camp and they will make you into a marine that's what it says we make Marines yeah and uh if you change your mind you're gonna be in the Marine Corps whether you like it or not there is no changing your mind yeah once you sign on the dotted line you're in yeah in the office of core it's different if you want to be an officer in the Marine Corps you go to OCS and Quantico Virginia and uh it's a 10-week training and uh you only have to stay in the first four weeks uh for the next six weeks you can drop out at any time for any reason yeah um and the reason is is because if you don't want to be a leader they don't want you yeah they give you the choice um you know leadership to me is like is like is like being a parent everybody has the capacity to be a parent doesn't mean everybody wants to be a parent and everybody should be a parent right leadership is the same everybody has the capacity yeah it doesn't mean everybody wants it and doesn't mean everybody should yeah it comes a great personal sacrifice it means you have to constantly worry about other people like being a parent yeah um you have to uh love them whether you chose them or not yeah you know yeah uh your team uh and and there are skills to being a parent and everyone who's ever had a child starts reading books when they find out that they're pregnant for the first time you know uh they start asking their friends they start asking their parents for advice and it's constant you know whether the kid's struggling at school or struggling at home or having a good time there's it's all the things like I I hate hanging out with my sister and my brother-in-law when they're with their their other friends who have families because all they talk about is kids yeah right um uh well leadership's the same yeah leadership's the same you know the the great leaders that I know or are all students of leadership they're obsessed they're constantly talking about it they're reading books about it they're watching talks about it they're reading articles about it they get together they it's it's the topic of conversation sure um and so you know if you want to learn the skill set I mean number one you have to want to do it um and B you're gonna have to do some work yeah I mean it takes it takes effort purpose is always idealized right like as I said before I imagine a world in which right I know I'm not going to get there like when Martin Luther King said I have a dream like one day little black children will hold hands on the playground with little white children right like all of these things they're all striving and the the Milestones that we pass make us feel like we're making progress and that's why metrics are really important and Milestones are really important and the most important thing is context there's nothing wrong with quarterly numbers and annual numbers the only question I would ask is to what end to what end like you know I was talking to a young entrepreneur last night and she's looking for investment and one of her potential investors said um how long is it going to take you to hit a hundred million dollar revenues and I said don't take that person's investment show me one article one I just need one show me one article on hbr one study I don't care that demonstrates that hyper growth or high speed growth is good for is good for the company on any level the answer is there are none the pressure comes from that person trying to achieve their financial goals so they put pressure on you to make your short-term goals right and so um and so there's nothing wrong with goals as long as we understand the context and the purpose of that goal right I like to think of money like fuel right and a car is the company and the purpose is the destination right and if money is fuel it makes the car go you absolutely have to money to make the company go you have to have you have to there is no dreaming big if you have no fuel you can have the most beautiful car in the world and yet if you've got no fuel it's pointless but we don't own a car to buy fuel right we don't own we don't have companies simply for the money right it's the destination you want to be able to go somewhere and the and the passengers are the employees and they're excited not about the fuel in the car how much fuel do we have no one gets excited by that we get excited where we're going we're going to Alaska are we near and it's and and that's the analogy and when there's a roadblock if you're only driven by by uh the metrics then the way we think about money the way we think about corporate goals the same way we think about our goal is to drive 200 miles a day our goal is to make x amount of money right that's how we think about it well what happens if you drive 150 miles is that a problem what happens if there's a roadblock do you know what to do you start freaking out and panicking because you're going to miss your numbers we're Purpose Driven companies that know their destinations in the idealized state they take detours and to the outside world that looks like you're going sideways or slowly but you know you're just going around and that's how companies actually look you know it's circuitous and messy and purpose helps us keep focused on the very far distant future so we know we're going in the right vector even if somebody can't tell we're going the right direction and so people have to understand the purpose of the goals you're setting and how they're contributing to something and start talking like we an rpnl I don't have the word profit on my p l it doesn't exist on my p l it says freedom I damn well want more freedom this month than I had last month right freedom to say no to things I don't want to do freedom to give it away freedom to take care of my people I want freedom because profit means nothing so I'm trying to contextualize all of these words that have no inherent inherent magic to them so yeah think of money like Fuel and fuel drives your purpose be Purpose Driven and talk about the place you're trying to get to and talk about the world that you imagine and the damn world better make a lot of fuel to get there because it's going to be expensive it's going to take a long time the question is how do we create an environment on in which our people can work at their natural best and that is the art of leadership it's creating environment in which relationships can thrive in which trust can Thrive and we all know what it feels like to be on a trusting team right it means that we feel psychologically safe enough to raise our hand and say um I made a mistake or I need help or I'm having trouble at home and it's affecting my work or I'm scared or I don't know what to do without any fear of humiliation or retribution but rather to say these things with the absolute confidence that someone on our team will rush to support us unfortunately we also all know what it feels like not to work on a trusting team where admitting any of those things could hurt your chances of promotion could hurt your chances of it you could be humiliated and so when we when we work on teams where leadership is creating an environment where there's where trust is a at a premium we force our people to come to work and lie hide and fake where they're pretending that they've made no mistakes they're lying hiding and faking and eventually things will crack and things will eventually break and and when you talk about reinvention and you talk about Innovation and you talk about challenging the status quo or whatever it is necessarily there's risk and necessarily there are mistakes and necessarily there's stupid ideas and you have to create an environment which that's good the alternative is everybody playing it safe which is not the way that leads to to best or significant Improvement so this is this is absolutely essential if you want to play in the infinite game because ultimately every single person here will leave the organization or die at some point you know uh circle of life and you'll be replaced by new people and so the opportunity is to create a company with vision and teams that can Thrive and Outlast every single person here you cannot have Innovation or progress without failure it doesn't exist and if you truly aren't failing as you're trying to innovate then you're probably not pushing very hard because you haven't broken anything you're taking you're making very very safe choices we could never put a person on the moon without a bunch of rockets blowing up first like of course um uh um I I met a CFO once I asked him the priorities at the company and he said efficiency and Innovation and I laughed and said well good luck with that you know Innovation is inherently inefficient because it requires experimentation experimentation requires failure um much is said about fail fast I actually don't like the term that we I think we overuse the term failure um you know and the problem with the word failure is it's like the word cancer it's too broad like if you have stage four liver cancer or you have a mild melanoma those things are both called cancer but they are clearly not the same thing and the same thing is when we hear the word failure some people think failure means experimentation but a lot of people think failure means catastrophe and so when we tell our company failure is good fail fast that literally scares people we don't want to fail so I think we need a new word right we want to avoid failure failure is catastrophic and it should be avoided but Falling I think we should encourage you know when a kid falls off a bicycle we didn't tell them they failed we tell them they fell and what do we tell them get back up and try again so I don't want to tell people they failed I want to see people they fell and I want to encourage them to try again and you know brush off their knees so I think we should fall and fall often and I will judge the quality of innovation not necessarily um by if you fell but how quickly you can pick yourself back up and try again let's reinforce that point because I think it's an important one that fulfillment is a right and not a privilege and when we go out with our friends for dinner or when we used to be able to do that um uh uh you know you sit around and somebody says I love my job and everybody goes oh my God you're so lucky like they won something that statement should be the norm not the exception we should all get to go to dinner and say I love my job and it's the one person who says I don't that's that that we can that we can intervene um so yeah I believe it is a right and we have a responsibility ourselves to to find a a place where we want to work with the people that we would work with rather than just taking the biggest salary that we have a responsibility to take care of the people around us and we have a responsibility to speak up and ask our our leaders to work with us and create a place where people want to come to work where we where there's a safe space for us to take care of each other and feel taken care of so there's Mutual responsibility all around um so when you say you know how do we do it well it's it requires constant work it's like how do you stay healthy well I can give you a whole list of things you have to do you have to eat right you have to nurse your personal relationships you have to get enough sleep you have to exercise you have to meditate you have to be mindful you know there's a little there's like 30 things and you can't do all those things well all the time it's a striving um and uh and when one's doing well sometimes one one thing falls off it's a striving and it's the same the the pursuit of fulfillment is a striving you know I I think it's you know this is why I make the distinction between fulfillment and happiness you know to seek happiness is a lot easier because happiness is fleeting you know you you you get a new job you're happy you get a raise you're happy you win a new piece of business you're happy you're given a gift you're happy you know somebody says something nice to you you're happy and that feeling goes away no nobody nobody walks around with a sense of happiness for a job they got four years ago it's gone um where fulfillment is different fulfillment you can feel fulfilled by your work even if you're not enjoying it today um you can feel fulfilled by your work even if you if you're having a bad a bad day you know or or one of your colleagues is grumpy you can still be fulfilled by the work it's more it's more uh it's it's more infinite it's more constant and so um whereas happiness is you know the things that lead up to it it sounds more like an event fulfillment is a striving it's a lifestyle um and you do all these things like having a just cause like building trusting teams and working to be the leader you wish you had in other words you see your life as a life of service to those around you whether you're in a company whether you're an employee whether you're a leader or if you're just a parent that you see your life in service you know to your spouse your partner or your and your kids and indeed your community what makes a community highly functional is that we view uh that every single person within that Community sees their responsibility to serve the community rather than standing around demanding the community does something for them there's only one characteristic that I'm comfortable saying that all leaders must have to become leaders and that's courage because leadership is hard and it often requires sacrifice and the the con that it will happen that you will have to put your interests your Comforts your advantages aside so That Others May gain and that's sometimes really hard in fact standing up for Others May mean that you might get your head chopped off you know a leader sometimes loses their job because they did the right thing right that comes with a significant risk the choice to be a leader comes at significant risk and this is why not everyone chooses to be a leader leadership has nothing to do with rank it has nothing to do with the title you have on your card leadership is a choice that's it I know many many people who sit in the senior echelons of a corporation and they are not leaders they are authorities and they have authority and we do what they say because they have authority over us but we would not follow them I know many people who sit at the bottom of organizations who have no Authority but they are absolutely leaders and the reason they are leaders is because they have made a choice they have chosen to look after the person to the left of them and they have chosen to look after the person to the right of them it doesn't always mean they have to sacrifice their interests but when it really counts sometimes they choose to sacrifice their interests because it's in the interest of the person to the left and to the right of them this is what leadership is there is another guy who does what I do he writes books he gives talks Etc his work is extremely well respected and and I admire his work as well I happen to hate him he's never he's never done anything mean to me and we've always had a very quality relationship when we see each other professionally I have an arbitrary hatred of it and as a result of my hatred I'm extremely competitive with him I would log on to Amazon on a regular basis no and check my book rankings and then immediately check his and keep in mind I check no one else's Just the Two of Us and if he was ahead I was angry and if I was ahead I was smug and whenever his name came up in polite conversation I would see underneath we were invited to speak together at a conference where we would be interviewed together and I don't mean like like literally we would be on the stage together and the interviewer thought it would be fun if we introduced each other um um and so I went first uh and I turned to him and I said um you make me really insecure and I said all of your strengths are all of my weaknesses and whenever your name comes up I get really uncomfortable and he looked at me and he said funny I think the same thing about you the reason I was so competitive with him had nothing to do with him it had everything to do with me because his weakness is revealed to me because his strength revealed to me my weaknesses it's more difficult to take a hard look at myself and say Here's all the work you have to do it's much easier and dare I say more fun to to direct all my energies at beating him um that turned out to be an extremely cathartic experience um and I learned the value of a worthy rival and the funny thing is after that experience I've never checked mine or his book wrecking since I applaud his work celebrate him want him to do well because it turns out working together we actually are stronger um and I think this is the same Folly in business right I I like you know which is we decide who our competitors are and then we obsess with beating them like ABC NBC CBS and fox were obsessed with beating each other and all they did was look at Nielsen radians every morning and then Netflix came up and didn't like who cares they're all over the world because they weren't even looking they weren't even watching because that's the arbitrariness of if you I remember back in the early days when I first started my career I was in the ad business and I was Junior dog's buddy to the junior dog's body and um I was on the um competitive analysis team and basically what that meant was we studied the competition and we put together decks to the executives of look what the competition is doing and we sometimes would hire outside Consultants to run you know research for us and if it was too expensive to study seven of them we'd cut it down to four which is hilarious if you think about it so you're making decisions based on four and ignore anyway you get my point so um I think the value of the other players in your industry of the other players in the game is not to beat them because there's no such thing as I said before you know Best Buy didn't win anything when Circuit City went bankrupt um but it's to recognize and respect them there are some players who do some or many things better than you maybe they have a better leadership stronger culture better marketing maybe their products are better designed who knows what and instead of trying to beat them which could mean you choose underhanded things or just drop your price you actually say okay let's make our product even better they have revealed our weakness let's Now work on that because the ultimate the only competitor in an infinite game is yourself a just cause is something a lot more idealistic it's a statement of the world that you wish that the the way the world you wished it worked the it's a world that you imagine like we imagine a world that's PWC we imagine a world in which and then we devote our practice we devote our energy we devote our resources to advance towards that cause and we're going to bring our clients with us the work that we do takes us closer to that course so I'll give you an example so my just cause our organizations just cause we imagine a world so you can see there's that Forward Thinking which as an aside which is why we call it vision is because you have to be able to see it right so we imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do that is our cause that is a cause so just that we would be willing to sacrifice in order to advance closer towards that ideal we will never get there it is an ideal okay and you can look at organizations or leaders that have made profound impact in their Industries or in the world you'll see these just causes whether it's all men are created equal right it's a just cause imperfect in all in its own way but you can see a nation striving um I have a dream literally imagining that one day little black children will hold hands on the playground with little white children imperfect in its own uh in in reality but you can see a a nation striving um when Apple and Steve Jobs used to talk about empowering individuals to stand up to Big Brother you can see the attraction to the personal computer because it literally gives power to an individual to compete against a corporation imperfect but a striving and all of these things become striving they become incredibly inspiring for for a Workforce because they feel like they're contributing to something bigger than themselves but when you think about innovation if you say provide greater value for our clients and it's not wrong I have to stress it's not wrong but but when you say innovate around that The Innovation tends to be more features and benefits it tends to be tweaking and efficiencies when you say be the best I don't even know how you innovate around that right you can't say some to say somebody you know make innovate so we're better but when you say innovate a way to advance this the ideas can come from anywhere inside the organization and the ideas tend to be a lot bigger okay so it's not that those things are wrong that what I'm what I'm offering are what a a clearer path to embracing an infinite mindset okay right it's not that the other doesn't work it doesn't have value it just has less value in the infinite game what is the existential flexibility was it say to us so existential flexibility is the capacity to make 180 degree strategic shift in order to better Advance your cause um and uh the there's a I call it a capacity because you need two things there's there's two prerequisites before you can even make an existential Flex one is you have to have a just cause in other words you can't change Roots if you don't know where you're going fair enough but then you're just going to always choose the fastest road but you may not get anywhere um and the other thing is you have to have trusting teams because if if you're going to make a profound shift in the way the organization functions or what its strategy is the the metrics are probably going to go down in the short term and you're probably going to increase the level of stress as the organization changes and so you need people who go I understand what the cause is I see why we're doing this and and I'm and we're gonna I'm I'm gonna I'm a part of this and they and the and the team is willing to go through the shared hardship in order to do the right thing for the good of the future um if you don't have the just cause and you don't have the trusting teams no amount of vision from uh leadership will uh that that existential Flex will probably fail um uh um but yeah I mean there there's a lot of things that reveal and I think unfortunately you're right I think the church as a as an as an industry if we can be so base about it sure but the church is an industry um uh unfortunately looks a lot like a lot of other old-fashioned Industries so why is it that Apple Computers a computer company disrupted the music industry by inventing uh by perfecting the iPod you know uh iTunes iTunes is really the thing that changes yeah right so why didn't the music industry invent that how is it that Netflix a little startup that came out of nowhere um dominates television and movies Blockbuster doesn't exist anymore they're they're gone why didn't the television and movie industry invent Netflix but they're now copying Netflix and playing catch-up you know uh uh uh it's the the disruption comes from organizations usually outside of your your purview um and you see it all over the place which uh and I think the the the church as an industry looks a lot like the music industry the film industry the music uh you know the the television Industries uh which is this is the way we've always done it this is how we got big this is how we got successful this is how we spread our message this is how we know this is what I know how to do because this is what I've been doing for 10 years 20 years 30 years and so either I'm afraid to change because I only know how to do this or uh this made me successful and yet I cannot accept what got me here won't get me there and I also I'm you know the world around me is changing technology is changing politics are changing culture is changing and I can't do what I used to do like Sears can't keep selling sending out catalogs it's not the world we live in anymore they were the most Innovative company in the world when that was a thing and so the question is how do you adapt for the world that we live in when we talk about safe we're talking about psychological that's right yeah um uh uh and you can be psychologically safe and still trip over a court that's right yeah um uh so it's it's a great story it's um I I had a business trip to um Las Vegas a bunch of years ago and the the client was very generous and put me up at the Four Seasons um which is a Lovely Hotel and the reason it's lovely is not because of the fancy beds any hotel can buy a fancy bed it's because of the people who work there that when you roam the holes um and somebody says hello you get the distinct feeling that they wanted to say hello not that they were told to say hello um you know we're highly attuned social animals we can tell the difference I mean it's your idea of being the Nordstroms is like people can tell the difference whether they're forced to give good service or they want to give good service um anyway they happen to have a coffee bar at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas and uh one afternoon I went and bought myself a cup of coffee and the Barista working that day was a kid named Noah Noah was funny and engaging and charming and I stood there for far too long just to buy a cup of coffee um and so as is my nature I asked Noah do you like your job and without skipping a beat Noah said I love my job now in my line of work that's significant because like is rational right I like the people I like the challenge I get paid well I like my job love is emotional it's a higher order connection like do you love your wife I like her a lot right it's it's different right it's not the same right so Noah said I love my job so immediately my ears perk up this kid has an emotional connection to his job so I followed up and I said can you tell me specifically what the Four Seasons is doing that you would say to me you love your job and without skipping a beat Noah said throughout the day managers will walk past me and ask me if there's anything that I need to do my job better anything they can do for me not just my manager any manager and then he said I also work at Caesar's Palace and there the managers walk around and just catch us when we're doing things wrong there they're just trying to drive performance he says there I just keep my head below the radar I just want to get through the day and collect my paycheck and then he said something magical he said only at the Four Seasons do I feel I can be myself so think about that for a second this is the exact same human being right in two different jobs and yet our experience of him will be profoundly different not because of him but because of the leadership environment in which he works in one experience it'll be amazing and one it'll be terrible right and I think so often I hear this all the time leaders ask you know how do I get the most out of my people well people aren't a towel you don't ring them out right how do I get the most out of them it's a flawed question when it comes to leadership the question is how do I create an environment in which my people can work at their natural best and the Four Seasons has figured that out right it's by giving him or agency it's by giving him control to to do the job that he wants to do the way he wants to do it and checking in to make sure that leadership isn't there to do his job for him or to overly control but to offer guidelines but also offer support and the same goes in any profession you can take a cop in one agency who will be high performance being a valuable member of the team a valuable member of the community because of the culture you can change the agency they work for and they can be a terrible member of the team because the leadership environment which they work it's really easy to be honest just tell the truth and if you tell the truth on a regular basis we will say you have integrity that's all it means these are really basic concepts so for example if somebody calls and a secretary picks up the phone and says Dave's on the phone and you say tell him I'm not you've just sanctioned lying inside your organization that's what you've done you have said that when it suits you even if these lies are small you may tell lies that was dishonest I went to visit Quantico Marine Base where the Marine Corps chooses selects their officers and on the day I was there true story I was waiting in a conference room for the colonel in charge of OCS to come and give us a briefing on on on the base about about OCS about the the selection process and he arrived late Marines don't ever arrive late and he showed up late he came in and apologized he said I'm sorry we've had an incident with one of our Marines so I go what happened you know he said well we're considering throwing him out of OCS which means throwing him out of the Marine Corps like I'm thinking what law did he break what did he do so I said what did he do and the colonel said um he fell asleep on watch and I said that's it he fell asleep on watch in the woods of Virginia you know I'm like you guys are tough he said and then he explained he said no you don't understand he said when we asked him about it he denied it when we asked him about it again he denied it again and only when we gave him irrefutable proof did he say quote I want to take responsibility for my actions the problem we have he said Is We believe you take responsibility for your actions at the time you perform your actions not at the time you get caught we have another Marine who fell asleep on watch he admitted it he got punished we have no problem with him and he went on to explain he says you have to understand I cannot put this Marine in a leadership position where they're responsible for the lives of other Marines because if they are in a combat situation and his Marines doubt for one second that the words coming out of his mouth are anything but the truth if they believe for one second that the words he is speaking are only to make himself look better or cover his own ass trust will break down in the whole group and people will die now we are not in life and death situations but the way our minds interpret information that is given to us is in terms of life and death this is why we don't trust politicians they tell us the things we want to hear we don't Prima facia disagree with anything we've been told but we know that they don't believe the things that they're saying and so we as human beings we're very very smart and this is always ingrained in us we always make sure just to keep a safe distance from anybody who we don't believe is honest because if we were to find ourselves in a life and death situation with them you know what I'm gonna if I had to gamble I'm gonna say won't go with them when someone is honest they're willing to tell us good news they're willing to tell us bad news they're willing to be upfront with them even if it's news that we don't want to hear even if it's not in our interest we're okay with it we actually trust them Hey listen I I got to be honest with you your performance has been really bad these days I love this we're supposed to give sandwiches give them the good news before you get to the bad news right so give them something general and generic that they don't believe anyway hey you're really smart and on this one project that you did that you really complete like it's really specific when they give us the negative right in other words we didn't believe the positive in the first place we knew they were just biting their time to get to the negative honesty we keep referring to others in our space as competitors but the problem with the idea of a competitor is a competitor someone we set out to beat right and so it's setting up the wrong mindset rather we want to have Rivals worthy Rivals Rivals who are worthy of comparison and their strengths reveal to us our weaknesses and by learning our weaknesses we learn where we can improve because remember the infinite game ultimately is a game of constant Improvement there is no sitting is best there is only better that's all there ever is but if you don't know your blind spots and you don't know where you're weak how can you improve that is the value of the other players in your industry that is the value of the other people on your own team you can have a worthy rival that you work with we've all worked with somebody that we hate that everybody else likes and they got a promotion and we were pissed off right the odds are really high that they have some Talent OR ability that is revealing to us a weakness that we have and it's so much easier to hate them than to take a hard look at ourselves in the mirror and then work on whatever we see right you don't have to like or agree with your worthy Rivals but you have to be grateful for their existence and we have to work on the things that it reveals you have to have worthy Rivals and you get to pick them talk about competition a little bit because my God we're we're hyper focused on beating people on being right on on competition I'm afraid of it I need to work harder like on talk about that a little bit how we can shift that culture so my my life and my work has been very much influenced by a philosopher named Dr James karst who in the mid-1980s uh defined these two types of games finite games and infinite games um a finite game is defined as known players fixed rules and an agreed upon objective football baseball um there's if there's a winner necessarily there have to be losers and there's always a beginning and middle and end uh to a finite game uh then you have infinite games infinite games are defined as known and unknown players which means you don't necessarily know who all the other players are and new players can join at any time um uh the rules are changeable which means every player can play however they want and the objective is to perpetuate the game to stay in the game as long as possible so we're players on infinite games every day of Our Lives whether we know it or not you know you can't win education you can come in first for the finite amount of time you're at school where we agree upon the time frames the school year and the metrics grades but we don't nobody wins education nobody wants learning nobody wins health care nobody wins global politics and nobody wins business but when you hear the language of so many people they talk about being number one being the best and beating their competition based on what based upon what agreed upon objectives metrics or time frames and this is a problem because when we play with a finite mindset in an infinite game we play to win in a game that has no Finish Line there are some very predictable and consistent outcomes the big ones are the decline of trust the decline of cooperation the decline of innovation and when people become obsessed with beating their competitors in a game where there is actually no winner right you there's no winning career you can get a promotion sure but there's no winning career and there's no winning in business and so beating your competition is actually based on what based on revenues profit based on what one year five years ten years the lifespan of the company like what what this is it's all nonsense it's all made up and so we spend so much time reacting to what another player has done rather than focusing on how we can improve and so one of the things that I've learned is to completely eliminate this idea of having competitors which is I have no competitors in my space none there are other players who do what I do and some of those players do some of the things that I do better than me and those players are my worthy Rivals and it is better to respect and study your worthy Rivals because their strengths reveal to you your weaknesses and if you can have your weaknesses revealed to you that means you can work on your weaknesses because ultimately as individuals as organizations we're in a state of constant Improvement that's all we're trying to do is be better today than we were yesterday be better tomorrow than we were today that's all this game is whether it's your life your relationships your business whatever it is it's a game of constant Improvement and so to obsess about beating your competition actually takes us away from constant Improvement because it might make us do something uh short term or it might make us do something expedient because it gives us a short-term leg up or use cheaper ingredients or trick somebody or you know because it can drive revenues and all that does is weaken our own organization that's all it does that's all it does and so I don't think of competitors at all I think of worthy Rivals and by the way worthy Rivals can change you know I get to pick who they are and I get to pick the reasons that they're my worthy Rivals and I'm in a state of constant Improvement thanks to them and sometimes it's something small and sometimes it's something big um but I'm grateful to all those who do similar things to me because it makes me a better player we have to have trusting teams I was on a business trip in Las Vegas and they put me up at the Four Seasons beautiful hotel and one of the reasons it's a beautiful hotel is not simply because of the fancy bed any hotel can buy a fancy bed it's because of the people who work there that when they say hello to you you get the distinct sense that they wanted to say hello not that they were told to say hello we're highly attuned social animals we can tell the difference they happen to have a coffee bar in the lobby and so one afternoon I went to buy myself a cup of coffee and the Barista working that day was a young man named Noah Noah was funny he was engaging I enjoyed buying a cup of coffee from him I stood there for far too long buying a cup of coffee just because I enjoyed talking to Noah so as is my nature I asked Noah do you like your job and without skipping a beat Noah says to me I love my job now in my line of business that's significant like is rational I like the people I like the challenge I get paid well I like my job love is emotional it demonstrates an emotional connection to whatever we're doing do you love your wife I like her a lot it's a it's a it's a different standard right Noah said I love my job so immediately I'm interested so I follow up I said to Noah tell me specifically what the Four Seasons is doing that you would say to me you love your job and again without skipping a beat Noah said that throughout the day managers will walk past them and ask them how he's doing I ask them if there's anything that he needs to do his job better not just his manager any manager and then he said I also work for a different Hotel and there the managers walk past me and catch me if I'm doing something wrong there they're always overbearing and trying to make sure that I make my numbers he says there I just like to get through the day keep my head below the radar and just collect my paycheck he said only at the Four Seasons do I feel I can be myself this is the exact same human being and yet the level of performance will be completely different not because of him but because of the leadership environment in which he's working I get this question all the time Simon how do we get the most out of our people they're not a towel that we ring them to see how much we can get out of them the question is flawed the correct question is what environment do I have to create what do I have to do to help my people work at their natural best that's called leadership and when we can create a trusting team teams in which people feel trusted and trusting what will happen is it makes them feel safe enough to raise their hand and say I made a mistake or I'm having trouble at home and it's affecting my work or you've promoted me to a position that I don't know what I'm doing and I need more training or I need help or I'm scared if we do not have trusting teams what we have is a group of people who show up to to work every single day lying hiding and faking they hide all of the mistakes for fear of getting in trouble they won't admit that they don't know what they're doing for fear that they'll be humiliated they're certainly not going to say that they're scared or that they need help for fear that it will somehow reduce their value inside the organization and eventually things will compound and break you can't incentivize results like you can't do that you can only incentivize the behavior that will achieve a certain result and if it's only about the short term then guess what you're going to drive a behavior that drives short term and so in your case what are the behaviors that you're recognizing and rewarding and so if people are getting bonused only for hitting numbers and they're not getting bonus for how they do business then you're going to incentivize a certain Behavior so I'll give you an example um so young in my career I worked at an ad agency and I was the junior dogs buddy to the junior dogs buddy and um it was traditional for a big new business pitch that the senior folks would run the pitch well it happened to be around Christmas time and all the senior folks went on vacation and so me and one other Junior person who were left behind because we didn't go on vacation we're told to prepare the War Room which basically means take a conference room and fill it up with all the research Well that took a few hours right but we still had a week and so she and I decided to write the whole pitch we went through all the research and we came up with a strategy and we wrote the pitch all the senior leaders came back we presented our work and they actually used our strategy in this new business pitch and we lost the pitch we didn't win and I got a huge promotion my boss actually moved me up two levels inside the company because he wasn't rewarding my performance he was awarding and rewarding my initiative by by giving me a promotion for taking the risk to do the extra work guess what I did after that took more risks and did more work even if it meant winning or losing didn't become the primary factor for me it was the initiative that but that wasn't because of me and my and my innate anything that's because that's the behavior my boss wanted from me and so I think what happens when we get big is we we do become too obsessed with the result and we don't consider the behavior there are some brilliant people making big decisions who may have missed the number or may have missed the goal but we gave them nothing which sends a subconscious message to the rest of the company which is if you hit your numbers you'll do well here if you don't hit your numbers we don't care how you do it as long as you know so you get the point so I think I think it happens big companies need to go back and reevaluate how they recognize and reward um uh and what if you want if you want risk taking then recognize the people taking risks even when they fail so you say I I've met this person that I really like how do I build trust well you don't tell them all your secrets on the first day right we all know that you have to be vulnerable but but there is there is a there's a timing you know and it's a dance and it's and it's giving somebody a little extra responsibility and seeing how they do and if they screw up instead of yelling at them be like all right try again you know that we treat mistakes as learning opportunities rather than you know and a mistake is only when you keep repeating the same error and you haven't learned anything um where we practice empathy you build trust with empathy as well so um empathy uh in business looks like this um here's a traditional scenario somebody walks you know picks up the phone or walks into their office when we had when we did that um and says you know your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row um we've had this conversation before and if you don't pick up your numbers in the fourth quarter I don't know what's going to happen right that's pretty normal here's empathy injected into that scenario hey your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row we've had this conversation before um are you okay I'm worried about you what's going on WOW right where it's about the person not the performance and so when again it goes back to that listening and you you are not listening until somebody else feels heard those things you know seeing someone as human understanding that we all have stresses and strains and Egos and insecurities and we bring all of that to work and though we still have to be uh emotionally professional you know you can't sit in the meeting like this because you're having a bad day that's emotionally unprofessional that we still have to be emotionally professional um we're still human beings yeah and a good leader uh recognizes that and by the way somebody on a team recognizes that too you don't have to be a position of authority to be a good leader you know because those who may be higher in rank than us are also filled with insecurity and fear and stress and strain and ego and all that right and it's okay to go up the chain of command and say hey are you okay you know you're really hard on us in that meeting today instead of labeling them an [ __ ] be like are you are you okay you know and and by the way and that's the dance it's like any relationship you know it's not expected for one person in an interpersonal relationship to to do all the listening it's a dance and it goes backwards and forwards and you know you you you you meet empathy with empathy and you meet listening with listening let's be Crystal Clear what a trusting team is we've all been on one in the past maybe and I hope you're on one right now um we've all been on trusting teams where we have psychological safety to say out loud I made a mistake or I need help or I don't know or I've got some stuff at home and I'm struggling and it's affecting my work product and I need help without any fear of humiliation retribution and that'll affect your promotability that's what being on a trusting team is and that's what we have to build for the people who work for us not being on a trusting team we've also all been there unfortunately where we're afraid to say I made a mistake we would never say I don't know something or don't understand something we would never ask for help because it's we're either going to get humiliated publicly or we're going to affect our promotability um and the opportunity to build trusting teams is what leadership is all about that's that's where the the strength of culture comes from so uh so yeah it's it's it's it's essential to building any kind of business short term or long term um but definitely definitely a long-term company for sure and all the stuff you talk about challenging and pushing boundaries means if you're pushing boundaries and you're thinking big you're going to fall a lot it happens there's no such thing as innovation without experimentation and experimentation inherently requires failure and I think a lot of companies that are too finite-minded they fear failure they fear well let me let me restate I actually don't like the word failure you know you hear you hear it a lot which is you know uh we have a fail fast culture you know I I think the problem with the word failure is it's like the word cancer which is there's a huge difference between stage four liver cancer and melanoma and a mild melanoma but they're both called cancer that's the problem and there are failures which are minor and overcomeable and there are failures that are catastrophic but the problem is they're both called failure I like the word falling failure we should work very hard to avoid but Falling we should encourage because you can get back up I know of one large gaming company and I love this um that they they don't have parties when they hit their goals they have parties when they fail they have they have parties when a game completely is a complete blowout because they're trying to acculturize being comfortable with missing a goal or or complete abject failure and they have a party and they have their own champagne which it has a label on it um their own label I think it's called they're called lessons and on the back of those champagne bottle after the party they actually write the lessons they learn from the failure and so it's a comfortable it's very comfortable it's a company that's very comfortable with failing which means they try again very easily and they're super innovative so creating a culture where we're falling is is part of the game right I think it's wonderful it has to be celebrated I love it passion is not an input passion is an output uh passion um you know we're all passionate we're just not all passionate for the same things and we will feel what we call passion when we are involved in something that is deeply personal to us that is helping us Advance some higher purpose or cause then when we go to work what we've what we experience is Passion but if you make us do something that we feel no personal connection to that is not as helping Advance any kind of bigger ideal than what we feel is stress now passionate people work many hours they don't come home they miss their families they take business trips they they don't sleep and yet it feels worth it people who are stressed going to business trips they miss their families the work long hours they don't sleep but it doesn't feel worth it passion is an output not an input like stress is an output not an input so you don't you can't do what you're passionate about you find something you believe in and what you will experience is passion so then it begs the question how do I find what I believe in right there's a I think Society especially our society and especially for a younger generation puts overwhelming pressure on us to have a vision what's your vision or find your bliss of all of these they're all the same thing right and the problem is we're not all Visionaries it's unfair it's an unfair standard that's like telling everybody be to be creative but we're not all creative where everybody be good at math but we're not all good at math we're not all Visionaries only a small percentage of our population are actually visionary you don't have to have a vision you have to find a vision right if you hear Martin Luther King say I have a dream that one day little black children will hold hands on the playground with little white children you go that's what I want you choose to follow Dr King when you hear the words of Visionaries and if they appeal to you in some visceral level they give you Goosebumps they make you excited they make you want to sacrifice be a part of it stand in line to hear them pay money whatever it is follow that make that your vision take it and say that's my vision too you can adopt someone else's vision and make it your own that's what we call a following is we have taken the visionary's vision and we have chosen to follow that Vision ourselves we are followers that's a good thing there's no difference between the Visionary and the follower we both see ourselves in service to something bigger than ourselves whether you are the originator of that idea or not is irrelevant what it does is fuel passion what it does is fuel conviction so we don't have to have a vision but we do have to find one and so read books watch TED Talks read articles be in life watch videos you know go out seek find listen listen to leaders corporate political whoever and when something resonates with you even if you don't know why that then you can adopt and you can take it upon yourself to use your own talents your own gifts to help Advance whatever that cause is right so I have a cause I have a Crystal Clear Vision of the world I want to live in I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day the gift that I have committed to help advance that cause is the ability to put some of these ideas into words that other people can relate to you know when you do a jigsaw puzzle the first thing you do is lean the Box against the wall right we all have a piece of the puzzle to help build this Vision my piece of the puzzle is I'm the guy that points at the Box but I'm not the guy who builds the business because there are other people who are better at that the entrepreneurs and the Business Leaders I want them to embrace the same picture on the box the people who work for companies who say I want to work for a company that does that that's their piece the one who's A Gifted natural leader who cares we all have at least one friend who for whatever reason love us and Care us even when we're horrible people that that for some reason they still believe in us and they see the good in US that's their piece of the puzzle and so we have to commit our gifts the reason they call them gifts is because they're forgiving that's what gifts are they're forgiving away if you have a gift it's not something you take it's something you give so I think we have to find a vision and commit our gifts to help advance that vision and the great leaders the ones that can put that Vision into words so clear that we can then recite that Vision as if it were our own I think very often companies can risk becoming reactive to things that happen in the marketplace which make so here's a great example right let's use a real life example Blackberry was a really fantastic company who built a really fantastic product with a really clear sense of vision which is we make strong secure extremely reliable products and if you remember if you ever had a BlackBerry you could throw that thing across the room drop it on the street and it just didn't break it just kept working it was the most reliable product on the marketplace you could type on the full qwerty keyboard without even looking down you could send a hole in the email and governments and big businesses loved it because it was really secure and really reliable then the iPhone showed up and the iPhone was the new shiny object and blackberry instead of sticking to their core and their beliefs became distracted by the shiny popularity of the iPhone which is a completely different animal serving a completely different audience and they started trying to copy iPhone so they started putting apps on their on their blackberries which what did it do made it slow and sluggish then they started coming out with flat screens you're not going to make a better iPhone than an iPhone um and they basically destroyed their company because they completely went off the reservation and and abandoned their fantastic cause there could be two marketplaces where you have the shiny object of the iPhone that we use in our personal lives and our companies prefer that we use a a Blackberry because it's reliable it's safe and it's and it's really really strong um and we could have had two dominant players for two dominant reasons like a PC and a Mac two dominant players with two dominant reasons for do two different reasons but they didn't they got distracted and I can imagine that their that their business people were saying you know business is moving at light speed we have to react um or we can work to advance our cause in a different way and not become distracted and that's part of the hard thing which is are we stuck in our old ways or are we actually sticking to our sticking to our long-term Vision that's that's part of the the difficulty of business to know the difference when covid first showed up I loved listening to the commentaries the number of people who said in these uncertain times and I would always giggle to myself because all times are uncertain there's never been a time in history that wasn't uncertain um all that happened was something that we didn't expect happened suddenly that reminded us you know that things are uncertain every stock market crashed nobody knew that was going to happen tomorrow it's always uncertain and this is where a finite Minds an infinite mindset rather this is where an infinite mindset could be very valuable because players who play with a finite mindset fear uncertainty and work hard to avoid surprise which is why they like short time frames we like the quarter or most the year don't talk to me about three years or five years that that freaks me out and I like everything to go according to Bland and be very predictable and so when something unexpected happens Panic is their normal reaction right when you learn when we learn to embrace an infinite mindset we actually see opportunity in Surprise and we Embrace uncertainty so when something unexpected happens it's still stressful but when something unexpected happens we go oh I wonder what we can do with this this is exciting hey team come here let's talk about how do we work in these in these in this environment and I saw it happen during covet it was so easy to see which companies were playing with a finite mindset in which you're playing with an infinite mindset because the finite-minded companies panicked and went into survival mode and everything was about themselves how are we going to survive how are we gonna make money right whereas the ones with the infinite mindset went okay opportunity here what if we were to start our company from scratch today how would we do things like what if we didn't exist yesterday and today was the first day of work how would we do things still very stressful but very exciting and instead of putting themselves at the center they were very more preoccupied with the customer people still want what we have how do we get it to them as opposed to how can we make money and so I could tell the difference immediately and so the more we learned to embrace an infinite mindset uncertainty becomes a joy becomes an opportunity for creativity and so it's that's one of the huge benefits is there practical things we can do to create a culture of seeking out that feedback and creating a safe space well the simple answers of course um the there's no such thing as a single Silver Bullet It's a combination of things it's like what's the one thing I can do to happy have a happy relationship well I I can't I can tell you a important thing but I can't tell you the important thing so it's the same um and everybody's a little different you know and each culture is a little different so there's there's not even a set list I can get but there's some things that people can choose from you know one thing is one of the ways we create space is how we react right if someone gives you feedback and you deny it well that's a problem if somebody gives you hard feedback and you thank them for it a very different environment it creates so I I I'll give you two uh examples one a lesson the other one a practical example that someone can use so I had the opportunity to visit the Army Rangers uh Ranger school in particular and I where they make they make army rangers and one of the uh troubles they had a bunch of years ago was they had these folks that they called Spotlight Rangers which was they were really good at their job like they were brilliant at all the tasks that were set to them strong they're the teachers the instructors loved them they stood out they were great they were motivated but as soon as the spotlight was turned off when the instructor wasn't there and they were back at Barracks they were [ __ ] and the only person who the only people who knew were their with their friends and colleagues because the spotlight was turned off and so the Army Rangers implemented a system of peer review in order to identify Spotlight Rangers and in now by the way they started this 40 years ago which I find incredibly Advanced um but to advance through Ranger school you need to pass three tests you need your instructor to say yep you're ready to go to the next level you need to physically actually perform all the tasks required of you and you need to pass your peer review um and if you fail any one of those three you don't make it to the next level interesting and so that becomes an equally weighted component of advancement in the Army Rangers which is what kind of team player are you which I love so we implemented a system of 360 review um which was sort of a bit of an amalgamation of things we've taken from other groups and made our own where what we what the way it works is um do you take the group of people you have regular interaction with and you um fill out uh your top three weaknesses or the places you believe you need to grow the most with a specific example for each so top three specific weaknesses or places you need to grow the most and then top three specific strengths or the places you believe three examples of the places you believe you've grown the most they have to be specific not like Oh I'm a much better time keeper now not that you've got to give some specific examples they're collated and distributed amongst the team and then you come together as a group and you take turns reading them so first you read your own weaknesses and then the group has the opportunity to add to that list and here's the best part we give a little speech before the whole exercise starts that the people who are going to give you this feedback really don't want to it's really uncomfortable for them it's going to be uh they they would just rather not do this exercise at all but they're going to do it because they want to see you and help you grow and so what they're giving you is a gift and so you have to receive it as a gift which means you say thank you you don't have to agree with it if you don't agree with it say thank you and just dismiss it it's fine but if it has an emotional impact if it makes you angry frustrated probably true right and we go around the room and somebody's tell they every people can add to this list of these weaknesses in any way there's no format they can do it in any way they want and you sit there and you look them in the eye and you genuinely say thank you you're not allowed to say a word except thank you then you do your strengths and you read your threat strengths and anyone can add to the list and just as you discovered you have blind spots you didn't know you have you discovered that you have strength that you didn't know you had that you're having a positive impact on the lives of others that you didn't know you were and it's a magical experience there's usually tears at some point because it's powerful and it's a safe environment what does it mean to live an infinite life clearly our lives are finite we're born we die but life is infinite we come we go and the game continues with us without us which means every single one of us has the choice of how we choose to live our lives how we choose to lead our organizations we can lead with a finite mindset try and make more money than our friends try and get ahead faster than everybody else try and achieve more power than anybody else and when we die we take none of it with us but the choice to live an infinite life means we choose to build an organization that will be better off because we work there we will leave it in better shape than we found it it means to be the kind of friend and leader to others that they will be better because we were in their lives it means we will literally live on Beyond ourselves it's just a choice whether we choose to live with an infinite mindset or a finite mindset did just walk me through because I'm actually very curious about you before you do you know what I mean like that's what I'm really kind of curious about so you didn't you were like disgruntled with your career a little bit right I wouldn't say disgruntled I'd fallen out of love yeah okay I was I had no passion for my career okay this was a chosen career like I started my own business in the category in a profession that I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life in Consulting marketing oh okay you know and uh and to wake up one morning with a superficially good life I own my own business we had amazing clients we did really good work our clients liked us and didn't want to do it anymore right it's kind of distressing because as I as I said where we started you know so many of us intertwine our identities with our work and if I don't like my work then who am I right and so I went through that um which uh was incredibly unfun um and it was the discovery of this of this little idea that I called the Golden Circle you know where we all know what we do some of us know how we do it but very few of us know why we do what we do and I realized I didn't know why I was doing what I was doing um and it was uh it was that crisis that was designed to do nothing more than help me find my own passion to get back my my mojo um that put me in a path that was um unexpected um uh my my entire career is an accident you know amazing um I am living proof that uh that you couldn't that you don't have to have a plan right right exactly and it worked out for you right you have to have a vision you have to have a vector you have to have a Direction but you definitely don't need to know the individual steps having a sense of purpose cause or belief for our work is what gives our work and frankly Our Lives meaning um you know when we die nobody wants the the last balance in their checking account written on their tombstone you know uh nobody wants the last title on their last business card on their Tombstone we don't that's not how we want to be remembered we want to be remembered for the kind of person we were in the lives of others you know devoted mother loving father you know these kinds of things um and and we want to know that our work uh had an impact in something bigger than ourselves it's a very normal human thing unfortunately a lot of people don't start to think about things those things until later in their lives and I've heard this I usually hear this from senior Executives believe it or not where they say you know I've had great success and I've done all these things but but I don't want my I don't want my life to end on this chapter I I would feel like I've done something wrong you know and they want to make sure that they're that they do something powerful and impactful in the lives of others that that's how they want to close the book on their lives what I love about this young generation is they're starting to think about those kinds of things now um you know it's not unique to a young generation everybody wants their work to matter and have meaning I think our young generation is just more vocal about it which is wonderful I always sort of reject the concept of blunt honesty you know um you can be honest without being an ass um uh you know do I look fat in these jeans I like the other genes better that's an honest assessment without making somebody feel bad uh for example um and we also have to get good at evaluating someone's personality some people are more sensitive than others and so a good leader is able to adapt their style and how they uh offer information so that um sometimes they have to be a little more polite to some and they can be a little more blunt with another because their personalities can take it what we want people to do is hear the feedback hear the input and it's based on how they receive it not how we like to give it we have to be the adaptable ones um as as as Leaders um but he he's absolutely right that good leadership starts with care and I hear this all the time unfortunately which is you know as a leader I didn't get to uh I didn't get to choose my team so why should I care about them or why why should I trust them you know they're not I didn't choose them well you didn't get to choose your children you love them um and this is one of the the the the risks of leadership you know leaders have to take the risk to care they have to take the risk to trust first I've never in my life heard a great leader say proved to me why I should trust you to their team it's the opposite a leader takes the risk to trust and it's the team who says prove to us why we should trust you that's the correct hierarchy um uh so so yes you don't you do have to care you want to see you want to see your people as human beings first um you know they are not the problem they may have a problem and inject a little empathy into the into the organization this is what what reflects care so for example I'll give you one one example um uh so here's a pretty normal scenario somebody walks into an office and says you know your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row we've had this conversation before if you don't pick up your numbers in the fourth quarter I don't know what's going to happen empathy uh changes that you walk into their office and you say your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row we've had this conversation before are you okay what's going on I'm worried about you that's empathetic that's the expression of care that we we recognize that someone may have a problem but they are not the problem I'll give you a personal example the person who's who sold me this property uh it was the seller's agent oh okay right he was charming and nice and wonderful and lovely and helpful and all the things that I would expect and I warmed up to him and he was apparently helping me and then I remember distinctly at the closing he sat there with no personality all of his charm had left all his friendliness had gone he barely engaged with me he just wanted to be there to collect his checks he could get out of there and I realized it was all fake it was all for show it was all to butter me up so that I would simply sign on the dotted line and as a result I will never work with him again as a buyer or a seller I'll never list with him ever and I probably will never work with that company again because I realized they just saw me as a number they never saw me as a person in the first place he was an old white guy I mean that should tell you a little bit of something as well that that sort of maybe how he was raised in the industry um and by the way the mortgage broker was no different you know uh he was charming and wonderful and lovely and helped me get a great rate etc etc and then I remember after I closed he called me and said congratulations and I said oh thank you that's so nice of you and he called me just to congratulate me on closing on my house and then the first thing he said to me was and if you know anybody who's looking for a mortgage I'd really appreciate the recommendation he never called me to congratulate me he called me because he wanted the referral like give it a breath you know like call me and congratulate me in a week later asked me for the referral and see let me tell you what sucks about that can I say that what sucks about that totally is that's that one person yeah colored your entirely and but this is finite versus infinite okay he he could only see the transaction he could only see get business get more business get business get more business what he didn't understand is he's dealing with a human being and the more there's a relationship I will gladly recommend him I will gladly introduce you to my guy right um now I'm completely agnostic because if you're going to treat me like a transaction I'm going to treat you like a transaction if you're gonna treat me like a transaction I'm going to squeeze you to get more money out of you I want a lower rate I'm going to squeeze the agents but if you treat me like a human being I'll gladly pay a higher rate because I want to work with you and that's what infinite minded players understand better which you don't have to be the cheapest you don't have to have the lowest rate or the lowest price if you have a great relationship what does it mean to live an infinite life clearly our lives are finite we're born we die we come we go but life is infinite The Game of Life will continue with us or without us which means every single one of us has a choice we don't get to choose the nature of the game Life is infinite we don't even get to choose if we want to play in the game or night once you're born you're in it foreign we get one choice do you want to play with a finite mindset or do you want to play with an infinite mindset to play with a finite mindset means waking up every day and say I'm going to be the best I'm going to be better than everybody else I'm going to accumulate more power more responsibility more money whatever it is whatever whatever your metric is I'm gonna I'm gonna get more than anybody else me and when you die you take none of it with you or we can choose to live our lives with an infinite mindset which means I'm going to leave this world the school in better shape than I found it it means I'm going to devote my life to see that those around me rise and we know that we're living with an infinite mindset because our obsession is seeing that we have an impact on the lives of the people around us we've all had teachers and some of you are those teachers we're 20 or 30 years from now I can go to one of your students and say you're a remarkable human being you've accomplished so much in your life how did you become the person you are today and they will tell me your name we all remember the teacher who believed in us we all remember the teacher who had our backs we all remember the teachers saw something in us that nobody else saw we've forgotten all the others but we remember those couple and that's what it means to live with an infinite mindset it means we divert ourselves to that mindset for everyone in our lives that other teachers will say that about us other principles will say that about us other students will say that about us our friends will say that about us I am who I am today because of you and I will commit to live the same life that you taught me how to live and you will literally live on beyond your own lifestyle your own lifetime that when you're gone others will carry your work for you this is what it means to live an infinite life and it is just a choice to me art is like a gift you know if you have capacity if you have talent if you have grit and hard work and you want to produce gifts are supposed to be given so what's the point of giving a gift is no one gets it right what's the point of producing a symphony if no one gets to hear it so I think reception is important to to give the art point meaning as opposed to pointless you know otherwise you're just decorating your home now we could have a debate whether I'm receiving it myself right um so we could definitely debate that but but I I I I uh I think it I think and maybe this is just the Romantic in me um it has to be enjoyed and and maybe one one one person is fine maybe if you hang it in your own home and it's just for you that's fine too but uh but I think art has to be enjoyed otherwise what's the point you know um um otherwise it's just therapy you know I'm just painting for therapy and we all do things like that you know um has to have another human being involved oh to me art is about a relationship right you you can't call yourself a romantic or somebody who chooses to to love another if if nobody ever feels Your Love you know uh it's I think I think art is um is a is is it's a type of language right um I know uh people who are the world's worst communicators when it comes to their emotions when you ask when you have a conversation with them I've dated some of them um but given the opportunity to write it's magical and the feelings pour out on a page in an eloquence like I've never seen and as everyone here knows great art in some way shape or form is always personal or semi-autobiographical right it's too hard to write pure fiction you know we in we we put ourselves in it because it gives it a sense of reality and it's what makes us passionate for the subject that we're tackling um I know dancers who you know you meet them and they're like this but as soon as they start dancing you realize there's it's all there so so art is language and if no one hears you you know does a tree if a tree falls in the woods you know if no one hears what you're saying is it worth saying anything they're just thoughts so what's the point of writing a play that never gets shown it's just a thought you know it's just an intention so yeah no I think it must be shared it's it's it's one of the ways in which people communicate what if our why scares us um and and we fear that people won't see it do we abandon it or do we just go for it okay so there's two thoughts there that are worth unpacking okay if other people don't see it okay that's let's let's deal with that first because I think that's a little that's a little simpler um if other people don't see it then the question is are we showing it right and so many of us all of us especially at various times we're all lying hiding and faking at various points right um somebody asks a question you know that makes us uncomfortable in a public forum sometimes we agree to something we say yes even though it's not true because we just don't want to embarrass ourselves we're very often inauthentic plus we live in an Instagram Facebook talkable world we're all presenting ourselves and curating ourselves as how we want to be so we're really good at showing people the kind of person we want to be it's kind of ironic as well if you think about relationships um you know we present ourselves as the as our best selves but it's only really when our vulnerabilities and insecurities are revealed can love exist um that's that magical authenticity so I would argue that if if the world doesn't see who you are you know are there ways that you can share it with the world in a way that is inspiring um to them and and authentic to you um uh how you show up you know uh sometimes the clothes you wear sometimes it's silly stuff um you know I I always I would often wear bright brightly colored ties in college I know a little a little nerdy but um one because it sort of was an reflection of my Independence I didn't dress like everyone else but I it also made people smile I would catch them seeing my my tie and it would make them smile and and I liked that um and so there are lots of little things we can do personally um to bring our why to life now what I'm really interested is what you said Andrea when you said what if our why scares us now if it's actually scary because it's dangerous or difficult um then maybe it's not fully Roi if it scares us but because we are afraid that others will judge us for what it is like this is truly who I am this is why I wake up out of bed every morning you know then then I think you have to go for it now the question is do you have to jump in the deep end I think that's a question of your own risk tolerance I think there's nothing wrong with wading into the water starting in the shallow end um I mean think about it look what I do for a living inspire people that do the things that Inspire them like how corny and cheesy is that right like I'm fully aware of that when I I first started talking about it people were like well that's cheesy I'm like I know I know and so I I but I still would do it and was it a jumping in the deep end no I would dip my toe and I would test things out you know and I would try things out not see how it was received and sometimes it went well and sometimes it didn't go well I was learning to swim with my why as basically was my why floaties I was wearing y floaties that's what I was doing um so yeah I think if it's if you if it feels right because that's the test of a why you know does it feel right does it feel like who I am does it give you chills or Goosebumps or does it make you well up when you think about it does it excite you uh then it's probably accurate and yeah then you're gonna have to at least get in the shallow end you dip your foot in and try try using it at certain places and as you get more comfortable you'll learn to swim so my favorite definition of culture is culture equals values plus Behavior um and so you have to have a clear set of values first and Innovation honesty you know these aren't values those are the things we write on the wall but those are nouns and if it's values plus Behavior it's things we want people to do everybody thinks they're honest yet everybody tells lies so the value isn't be honest the value or honesty the value is tell the truth the value is an innovation you can't walk into someone's office and say a little more Innovation today please right you know uh doesn't like nobody you can't innovate you can't execute on Innovation it's not an instruction um but you can tell people look at the problem from a different angle like that's something you can do so to to and by the way your values are not aspirational they're not a bunch of Executives sitting at an off-site cutting pictures out of magazines and saying this is the company we want to be your values are who you are when you are at your natural best your culture already exists but you're not necessarily always operating at your natural best and that's as true for companies as it is as it is for individuals and so to uncover your values is not aspirational it's a process of discovery and then you can write down this I've never seen more than five weirdly don't understand the biology but when you start getting more than five they start to overlap enough that you could probably eliminate one of them which I think is interesting um but there's there's at least uh sorry this is uh at most five values three to five um that are who you are when you operate at your natural best and now the question is is can you develop recognition rewards incentives to promote those values are you talking about those values are you hiring to those values are you firing people who may be high performers but refuse to live to those values because then what you're doing is reinforcing to the rest of the company that the values matter more than anything else which is really important because if we talk about values but then all we do is promote toxic team members who are high performers and we've all had this happen where sometimes even management knows you're like you know that person is a real [ __ ] they're like I know but their numbers are so good right um and then we let them be and so that sends a message to the rest of the company that we're talking about these values but we don't actually believe it um and so you don't necessarily have to fire the person but we do have to coach that person I don't think you can motivate the unmotivated I I don't think you could motivate people people either are motivated or unmotivated I think you can inspire people um and uh and you know you can motivate people with sticks and carrots you know offer them Bounty or threatened punishment and you'll get behavior that you want is there loyalty is their love absolutely not um usually when people are unmotivated it's not necessarily them it might be the situation they're in um maybe they don't belong in the culture um maybe they feel unseen or unheard maybe they're scared maybe they're unprepared so we we have to you know when somebody's unmotivated let's not label them as unmotivated first what are the 20 other things that it could also be let's start there now are there some people in the world who are made unmotivated absolutely you hired them which means you bear some responsibility if it's if it's time to transition them to help them find another place where they're going to be a better fit we can't yell at them and call them stupid and motivated and push them out the door we have to bear some of the responsibility we hired them and if we made a mistake and hired somebody who's a bad cultural fit then we have to take care of them and help them transition to somewhere where they're going to be a better fit um I think that um you know if we only focus on motivating people and that's a factor then you're only going to get very finite thinking an excessive amount of motivating things like hit this number get this bonus uh you'll get a motivated employee pool that doesn't care about about each other might stab each other in the back and eventually will take a better job somewhere else we have to inspire people we have to give them that sense of cause and vision that their work is worth more uh we have to make them feel like they matter and feel like they're seen and heard and understood and what ends up happening is those people are not only more vote motivated and inspired but if they're offered a better higher paying job somewhere else they turn it down because it's not just about the bonuses and the money it's because they would rather be here with these wonderful people so ethical fading is a really amazing and fascinating social phenomenon uh basically what it is is when a group of people make unethical decisions believing that they have are still consistent with their own ethical framework in other words they don't think they've done anything unethical right extreme examples of this would be things like um a pharmaceutical company raising the price of an essential uh uh a drug uh 500 800 a thousand percent five thousand percent and though it may not be illegal it's highly highly unethical and and yet they don't think they've done anything wrong um uh that's an extreme example but we see ethical fading happen all across companies all the time um where we do things that we know are good for us where we might lie to our our customers or our clients for example or we might lie to each other to get ourselves ahead you know this is all these are all demonstrations of ethical fading um the way in which ethical fading happens um as you said one of the ways is just a ridiculous unbalanced amount of pressure on short term which forces us to think about ourselves or or uh only think about that short-term goal um and then we can rationalize well everyone's doing it it's what the company wants me to do how else am I going to get ahead I have to put food on the table it's the system it's you know like we can rationalize the behavior um also the slippery slope we do something a little bit once it worked we do it a little more it works we do a little more at work so do it and before you know it you have full-blown ethical fading and so the way you combat ethical fading and and like I said I gave you an extreme example of the Pharmaceuticals but we see low-level ethical fading across a lot of companies unfortunately um and the way you combat it is uh is one uh uh good leadership uh where that kind of thing is not tolerated so for example it's it's totally normal for people to have unethical ideas um but the question is when when do they get caught so in an unhealthy company that that unethical idea is implemented until social pressure or the law intervenes or there's a scandal right and then we say oh we're terribly sorry we you know we're a very good company after you got caught in a in a in a properly ethical company somebody May raise the idea in a meeting and everybody in the meeting will go that's funny but we would never do that here that's that's not us that's a little bit unethical and we get it gets shut down immediately um and and again that's good leadership because it's the leaders who are promoting people who are ethical who are highlighting ethical behavior and acting in a way that sets the tone and they're not putting undue pressure on people to break the rules in order to make the numbers um you know a lot of leaders unfortunately when confronted with toxicity or an ethical Behavior they'll struck their shoulders and say I know but the numbers are so good and they allow it to happen and so one of the primary ways in which you beat ethical fading quite frankly is is good leadership but the others are just cause you know trusting teams all of these things contribute to operating in a highly ethical way so in the mid 1980s a philosopher and theologian by the name of Dr James cars articulated 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 football baseball if there's a winner necessarily there have to be losers and there's always a beginning middle and an end right then you have infinite games infinite games are defined as known and unknown players which means you don't necessarily know who all the players are and new players can join whenever they want um uh the rules are changeable which means every player can play however they want and the objective is to perpetuate the game to stay in the game as long as possible turns out we're players and infinite games every day of our lives right there's no such thing as um winning global politics there's no such thing as winning marriage you can't be number one in your marriage you can be number two but you can't be number one right um uh there's no such thing as winning education nobody wins learning you can come in first for the finite amount of time you're at school where we agree upon the time frame and the uh uh and the metrics grades but nobody wins education and nobody wins business like when Circuit City went bankrupt Best Buy didn't win anything right but if you listen to the language of so many leaders half the room doesn't know what Circuit City is I know it's sort of I realize that it used to be a company that competed with Best Buy same thing Big Box store went in bought a VCR you don't know what a VCR is right um what I love about this these definitions is that when we listen to the language of so many leaders it becomes abundantly clear that they don't know the game they're playing in the number of leaders who talk about being number one being the best or beating their competition based on what based upon what agreed upon metrics time frames or objectives and this is a problem because when we play with a finite mindset in an infinite game when we play to win in a game that has no finish line there's some consistent and predictable outcomes the big ones are the decline of trust the decline of cooperation and the decline of innovation so let's let's translate that to a policing organization right an infinite game is not the absence of finite games it is the context within which finite games exist clearly you are engaged in finite things every day of your career you have a project that you need to complete there's a beginning middle and end if someone has committed a crime you want to try and catch that person there is a known objective there's a beginning middle and end there's going to be a winner there's going to be a loser right if somebody you're chasing somebody down for for a moving violation for example this is these things are finite but policing and the organization of the Orange County sheriff is an infinite organization we hope that this organization outlasts everybody here and thrives Beyond everybody here so the decisions we make and the way we conduct ourselves have to be considerate of the fact that we want this organization to thrive for the long term any participant in any industry can get lazy when there is little change in how that industry operates and then when there's a sudden change to how the industry operates everybody gets angry panics and points a finger I'll give you an example okay I'll give you two examples example number one taxi companies around the world hate Uber right now here's the reality the app that calls a car not proprietary you can call a taxi with it with an app right paying with your phone not proprietary any taxi can do that as well the reason Uber is eating taxi companies for lunch is because it's a better product and the taxi companies around the world could have a shitty product because you're the only game in town and we had no choice and now you have a competitor and instead of competing you're getting angry I would gladly take more cabs than coal Services if I got in the cab and he said hi and it was clean and I had a nice chat with him and he wasn't on the phone and he wasn't smoking and in all of these things and I had some leg room I'd glad gladly gladly has nothing to do with the app the pay mechanism has to do with the fact that Juno and Lyft are just better is it just a better experience better product is why I take them it costs a dollar more whatever I'll pay for it it's not even a price thing I have no idea if it's cheaper more expensive I actually never compared the same goes with Starbucks right so there was a a lot of people hate Starbucks because they put mom and pops out of business right the reality is the complete opposite that when Starbucks moves into a neighborhood Mom and Pop's coffee shops actually do better for two reasons one Starbucks attract more customers so there's just more people and the second reason is there is a Groundswell of giving back to the local and so more people go to the mom and pop right the ones that go out of business the ones that refuse to compete I'll give you a real life example this goes back a few years a real life example I'm lactose intolerant right so I don't have milk in my coffee and there was a time where it wasn't a foregone conclusion that every coffee shop had soy milk or almond milk or something so I would always go into the mom and pop that was across the street from Starbucks always going to the mom and pop and I'd say do you guys have any soy milk and they go nope I go like thank you and I would walk out those went out of business because I went to Starbucks he's right I went to Starbucks now had Starbucks moved in and they went across the street and said let's see what Starbucks has we should offer soy milk maybe it's time for us to replace this ripped couch that we've had for 15 years because it's really nice across there and it's really gross here it's the ones who got angry and refused to compete that went out of business I think retail's the same everybody's pointing fingers instead of saying we've had it really good for a bunch of years and the question is now what is our competitor revealing about our own weaknesses that we can learn to improve because that's what competition does competition reveals your weaknesses to you and when you had no competition you didn't know where you were weak this is the problem with being the best at anything because you don't know where your your faults are and then somebody undermines you because they can see your faults before you can no one is no one is born with self-confidence zero right every single one of us our self-confidence was determined by how we were raised the parents we had the teachers we had the bosses we've had the jobs we've had my sister worked for a company for 17 years and her boss destroyed her self-confidence she came out of that job and she didn't realize until she got into her new job how afraid she was to make decisions because of her boss and it took it took a while for her to get her confidence back um and so if somebody's insecure we have to over and over and over again prove to them because we don't know where they came from we don't know what kind of trouble they got in before for being honest right or what how they were raised we don't know and so we have to Total empathy and just prove to them that that if they make a mistake they're going to get helped not hurt they're going to get supported not yelled at and it the first time they won't believe you they think it's a game they think it's a con it's a trick the second time maybe and we just have to keep at it that every time I used to have I used to have somebody on my team who would regularly lie to me right because she would rather lie to me than tell me that she made a mistake it was in and I could and if I saw the lie I would ask so many questions to get her to say to me I screwed up I'd be like well this doesn't make sense because I can't say you're lying to me right I just say this doesn't make sense this doesn't make sense if this adds up to this then why is it that and she would shoot the LIE would get bigger and then she would yell at me about how I don't trust her and then at the end I have to be like listen it clearly doesn't add up I'm okay if it doesn't add up if you made a mistake just tell me and I'm good and we'll move on but when you deceive me I'm going to ask you so many questions to get to the truth that it's going to get worse and worse and worse I had to have that conversation with her probably 50 times before little cracks started to show where she showed up to me once where one number wasn't there and she looked at me and said I made a mistake and I went cool thanks Alan mullaley puts it brilliantly he says you you have a problem you are not the problem right so if something goes wrong we have a problem but you are not the problem and that's the point is we've too many times told people that they're the problem so I think it's just going to take time and patience and you have to do the hard work of helping that person build up their confidence again human beings we can't help ourselves but compare ourselves to others and comparison is is the deadliest thing we can do to ourselves because we will always come up short I mean all it does is exaggerate all of our insecurities um it's okay to enjoy other people's success but you let them live their lives and you live your life oh and by the way they're curating their social media that's not really their life um and so you're making decisions based on how you feel based on their curated things I know I've talked to so many Millennials I know somebody who's out of work really depressed and yet she goes and does all these things so she has the appearance of this amazing successful life and and so you met now she may be making those decisions based on what her friends who knows what sort of weird Twisted exaggerated you know circle of of depression this is forming so go back to the rules of the infinite game your friends are there to admire your friends are there to say God that I'm so happy for them what are they doing that I can learn from I'll give you an example so we're all we can all fall into this trap so you know in my business uh authors and speakers and folks like us we're all comparing ourselves to each other and sometimes it can get silly and competitive and there was you know sometimes I go on Amazon and check the rankings of my books to see that there's that I still have a job and and now then there was this one author who I hated for no reason he's very smart his work's incredibly good he's incredibly well respected I respect him but I hate him and I would check the rankings of his books and when I was ahead I'd be like yes and when he was ahead I was like weird abstract competition same thing right social media happened to be Amazon rankings right and I would check in all the time I'd always check in mine his mine his nobody else just mine and his anyway we were uh I was at an event and we were interviewed together on the same stage and the interviewer decided to let us in introduce each other so I went first I had to introduce him and this is what I said I looked at him and I said uh you make me very insecure I said uh because all of your strengths are all of my weaknesses and every time I see you do well it just reminds me what I'm bad at that's how I opened up he he turned to me and he said funny I feel the same way about you and now we love each other because I realized that he's really good at what I'm bad at so by me getting to know him and really learning to love him I'm realizing I'm getting better at those things and I'm taking more pride in the things that I'm good at rather thinking rather than thinking I have to be good at everything he's good at right so that that it's it's healthy to grow our own strengths and rather than be intimidated by the strengths of others the human brain cannot comprehend the negative it is incapable yes it's true I'll give you an example [Music] okay no no I'll give you an example you don't have to believe me I'll prove it I'll prove it okay the human brain cannot comprehend the negative you ready don't think of an elephant uh you can't you can't tell the human brain not to do something right and so what happens is we very often reinforce things when we put things in the negative right I can't get apart I can't get apart I can't get apart right or um um I can't do this versus I'm going to keep doing this I'm going to keep doing this I'm going to keep doing this right um and and it's it's such a huge thing to convert things into the affirmative you're supposed to do it with children as well we're supposed to say instead of saying to children don't eat on the couch we're supposed to say eat at the table right we tell people what we want them to do not want them what we don't want to do pilots know this right it is well known in the pilot community that when you tell a pilot don't hit the obstacle they'll hit the obstacle because what they're doing is focusing on the obstacle skiers know this if you've ever seen skiers go through trees do you know how they do that it's very easy it's actually surprisingly easy if you go through trees on skis and you go don't hit a tree don't hit a tree don't hit a tree guess what you're watching you're only looking at trees all you're doing is seeing dreams you don't understand how anyone can ski with all these trees right as opposed to follow the snow follow the path follow the path the only thing you see is the path skiers know this if you say don't hit a tree you'll hit a tree you won't be able to find a path because all you see is millions of trees if you say only follow the path you actually don't see any trees there's actually very sparse trees there's plenty of path there's plenty of snow it's the same thing for you if you focus on the obstacles all you will see is obstacles if you focus on the path through the trees all you will see is path through the trees it's your choice how you choose to perceive your own career it's literally perspective can you off the top of your head can you think of you talk to you compared you know the finite mindset to some things with law enforcement sure as far as infinite can you think of anything off the top of your head where you could relate that specifically to what we do what that might look like anybody who's wearing a uniform here and knows this because you've had this experience in your career right which is treating someone with dignity treating someone with dignity has nothing to do whether they are guilty or innocent right um that everybody here knows that when you treat somebody with dignity the way they respond to you even if they've committed a crime and they're sitting there in handcuffs is very very different than when we don't treat them with dignity so for example treating someone with dignity may look like somebody gets pulled over for expired tags or something and you've they've got a warrant I don't know and you have to tow their car right so you call a tow truck and now somebody who's maybe financially struggling you've just put at least 300 more that they have to deal with or treating them with dignity is like hey I gotta I gotta tow your car before I call a tow truck do you want to call somebody you want to call a family member or something who can come here and get your car um that'll save you 300 bucks you know and help you out you know and if you can't call somebody I'm gonna have to tow it right that's treating someone with dignity and everybody here knows that when you treat somebody with dignity sometimes you're taking them to jail and they thank you and the way in which people respond to the uniform if treated with dignity has nothing to do with breaking the law or being put in handcuffs it's how it's it's human being to human being and so I think in a law enforcement uh when law enforcement is conducted in the policing organization you're thinking about the longevity of the value of the uniform you're thinking about the relationship of of the the those who wear the uniform in in public how much the public is willing to help us if a crime is committed and we go to the public and say can you help us and their willingness those those things are determined right now on a day-to-day basis right it and you asked before about building of trust right trust does there's no big thing you can do that builds trust trust is built up with lots and lots and lots of tiny little innocuous little things think of it like your own relationship like you know have you ever been in love the person who fell in love with you there wasn't like I I bought you flowers on Valentine's Day now you love me right that's not how it works it's like you know I went to the fridge to get myself a drink and I got you one too without you asking I woke up in the morning and I said good morning to you before I checked my phone there was a game on and you said honey can I talk to you and I paused the game and said what's on your mind right I'm being idealistic I mean um uh my point is there's no one of those things made someone fall in love or trust you but it's the combination and accumulation of all those tiny little individually innocuous things that would say I believe you and I trust you now imagine an entire organization where we're just trying to do our job we just have to enforce the law we have to do these things these are the rules this is how we do it but the manner in which we conduct ourselves each one innocuous unto itself over the course of time builds tremendous Trust with an organization and the community so that when you need to pull from that Trust Bank when you need to make a make a make a withdrawal right because something's gone really horribly wrong and maybe there was somebody who acted illegally within the department that you get to say to the community we screwed up and I need your help to be patient they go you're good you're good but that that trust is earned I think courage is external right the reason someone has courage to jump out of an airplane is because there's a parachute on their back it's the external thing a world famous trapeze artist would never try a brand new death-defying act for the first time without a net it's the net that gives them the courage uh you know the Navy Seals are considered one of the highest performing organizations on the planet and a former seal was asked what kind of person makes it into the seals and he said I can't tell you the kind of person that makes it in but I can tell you the kind of person that doesn't make it he said the Star College athletes who have never really been tested to the core of their being none of them making it he said the preening leaders who like to delegate everything none of them make it in he says the guys that show up with hulking muscles covered in tattoos because they want to show you how tough they are none of them make it in he sent it he said some of the guys who make it in are skinny and scrawny he said some of the guys who make it in you see them shivering out of fear he said but every single one of the guys who makes it in when they're emotionally exhausted when they're physically exhausted when they have absolutely nothing left to give somehow some way they're able to dig down deep inside themselves to find the energy to help the guy next to them in other words the reason these organizations and these people have the courage to do remarkable things is not because of their internal strength it's because they have the absolute confidence that there is someone to the left of them and someone to the right of them that cares about them um and they will know that and it's the quality of the relationships that we maintain professionally and personally that give us the courage to do difficult things Isaac Stern the famous violinist said music is what happens between the notes well something like trust happens between the meetings you know we a few people think about the importance of building trust when they go to work or the what I need to do today to build trust with somebody like that doesn't really go through people's minds but we have Chit Chat as we walk into the meeting we've Chit Chat when we walk out of the meeting and we see somebody the whole they're like oh meant to tell you something or you knock on someone's door and be like got a minute and all those little innocuous interactions over the course of time like any relationship build trust it's about setting up the computer and setting up zoom and having a work session with somebody you know like we're not working on the same thing but I want to work with somebody a work buddy or having a lunch with somebody over Zoom or a Monday morning huddle where we talk about what's on our hearts and minds but we do not talk business on purpose or Friday uh cocktails that are just voluntary but the most important one is to just pick up the phone and call people and say hey how are you that level of empathy just check in on someone and I think we neglect it because we get mired in the day-to-day but you know one of you know if you're organized or disorganized you know literally keep a list of your team on a little card next to your computer and just you know go through it and have I called this person a while and talk to us but I'm just going to call and check in it doesn't matter if something's wrong or not wrong just check in on them you know don't wait for something to Break um and let people know that they're uh that there's connection there's a way to reach out and say I need help um because if if if and and the most important thing is for leaders to be honest and open about their need to ask for help and that that'll work they happen to have a coffee bar uh in the lobby of the Four Seasons in Vegas and so one afternoon I went and bought myself a cup of coffee and uh the Barista working that day was a kid named Noah Noah was funny and charming and engaging and I spent far too long buying a cup of coffee because I just so enjoyed talking to Noah so as is my nature I asked Noah um do you like your job and without skipping a beat Noah said I love my job now in my line of work that's significant like is rational I like the people I like the I like the work you know I get paid well I like my job love is emotional it's a higher order connection right like do you love your wife I like her a lot right clearly it's clearly a different standard right so when Noah said I love my job my ears perked up this kid has an emotional connection to his work so immediately I followed up and said tell me specifically what the Four Seasons is doing that you would say to me you love your job and again without skipping a beat Noah said throughout the day managers will walk past me and ask me how I'm doing ask me if there's anything that I need to do my job better not just my manager any manager and then he said I also work at another hotel and there the managers walk past us and catch us when we do something wrong they're the managers are always trying to drive performance and make sure we hit our numbers he said there I'd like to keep my head below the radar get through the day and just collect my paycheck only at the Four Seasons do I feel I can be myself now this is the exact same human being working at two different companies and yet our experience of him will be profoundly different not because of him but because of the leadership environment in which he works you know I get this question all the time you know Simon how do we get the most out of our people people are not a towel that you ring them out to see how much you can get out of them you know it's it's a it's it's it's that's a good one right [Applause] [Music] it's a flawed question the question is how do we create an environment on in which our people can work at their natural best and that is the art of leadership it's creating environment in which relationships can thrive in which trust can Thrive and we all know what it feels like to be on a trusting team right um it means that we feel psychologically safe enough to raise our hand and say um I made a mistake or I need help or I'm having trouble at home and it's affecting my work or I'm scared or I don't know what to do without any fear of humiliation or retribution but rather to say these things with the absolute confidence that someone on our team will rush to support us unfortunately we also all know what it feels like not to work on a trusting team where admitting any of those things could hurt your chances of promotion could hurt your chances of it you could be humiliated um and so when we when we work on teams where leadership is creating an environment where there's where trust is a at a premium um we force our people to come to work and lie hide and fake where they're pretending that they've made no mistakes they're lying hiding and faking and eventually things will crack and things will eventually break and and when you talk about reinvention and you talk about Innovation and you talk about challenging the status quo or whatever it is necessarily there's risk and necessarily there are mistakes and necessarily there's stupid ideas and you have to create an environment which that's good the alternative is everybody playing it safe which is not the way that leads to to best or significant Improvement there's no such thing as a perfect job and there's no such thing as a perfect person of course there are things that we are doing that hold ourselves back and of course there are things about the environment in which we work whether it's the people or the job or the whatever the circumstances that may also be holding us back I mean but to see ourselves as victims is not is not the up is not the thing but rather to seek opportunity and it goes back to that growth mindset um uh which is it's what I've learned is one of the best ways to grow oneself is to actually help somebody on the team grow service you know there's an entire section in the book shop called self-help and there's no section of the Bookshop called help others and I think what we've done is we've over indexed on the whole rugged individualism sort of self-helpy thing how can I be successful how can I grow my business how can I lose weight how can I find love and yet we forget how can I help somebody else grow their business how can I help somebody else find success how can I help help somebody else lose weight and find love Etc and the irony is is the more that we set out to help somebody else because we have more objectivity with other people ironically we actually learn to help ourselves I I tried this out I did a little experiment um a dear friend of mine was going through a hard a hard time a solopreneur the work wasn't going well her marriage was shaky and she was in a bad place and so she knows what I do for a living so she called me up and says would you spend some time with me I said of course so every single week religiously we spent about 90 minutes together she'd come over and we would talk and I would offer some perspective and some ideas and she'd feel great for like a day or two and then she'd go back and we'd get together the next week and she'd feel great for a couple of days and then go back in this repeating pattern went on for quite a while and then I remember my own work which is the idea of service and had a little idea which is to switch to switch it around and I called her up and said look I would like some coaching too and it was genuine I said you know me better than anybody else I trust you completely when we get together for one of our sessions Can it can I can I use up some of the time can I tell you what I'm going through and what ended up happening is we spent all 90 minutes talking about my stuff and this went week after week after week where she was just the uh advice giver and strange things started to happen she started to get more stability in her work more stability to her marriage her confidence went up and it was because she was helping me that she was gaining all the insights and perspective because it wasn't personalized it's like sales training and anybody who's ever gone through sales training you know this which is you always do it with three people you know the person who plays the role of the salesperson the person who plays the role of the uh the person you're selling to the buyer and an observer and it's the Observer that does the learning not the people playing the roles well in this case you got to see herself not being not be uh so close to it gave her objectivity so I'm a great believer in if you have a problem to solve at work try and help somebody else solve that same problem I was uh during covid um I worked out with a friend of mine who lives somewhere else we worked out on FaceTime together we would just turn on FaceTime and just do the same workout together basically and one day we were doing a particularly difficult workout and I said to her I have some good news and I have some bad news she says well what's the bad news I said the bad news is we're only half way done she says well what's the good news I said the good news is we're already halfway done and that simple the simple way in which I present the information literally profoundly changes the way in which we do the second half of the the workout we're only halfway done the rest of the the workout's a slog it's difficult it's hard we don't want to do it we're already halfway done I mean it's all downhill we've already done this once we can easily finish this off and it's amazing how easy it is to change our mindset um uh uh and so it's the same thing here um we've done it in our own organization where we see another organization who you know I mean I hate to use the word I use it just for the for the example but outpaces us I mean we don't care about that but and and instead of getting all angry and often bothered and trying to beat them we say to them we're the arrival what what you know what strength do they have that's revealing a weakness in us and we're like oh my goodness our website sucks or our e-commerce sucks or our you know customer service sucks or whatever it is you know we spend a lot of time looking at people who we admire who are in our space who do some or many things better than us we like look at their websites we look at their product we look at the ease of use we're like wow that's really good you know we don't have to like it we don't have to agree with it but we can still complement it um and I think that's the big thing people think that you know that you you know uh that you have to hate everything that somebody does nonsense you don't have to agree or like but you do have to respect um and uh and quite frankly to put on blinders and go through the world with blinders on that there's no one else out there and they definitely can't do anything better than you is quite frankly just stupid because it's just not true um you're not great at everything and you never will be it's an infinite game it's a game of constant Improvement just like every person there's no such thing as a perfect person you know we should be in a growth mindset constantly trying to improve every day of Our Lives it's the same thing and it's even that's difficult even that's you even that you can't you can't grow every day even that's hard you know it's messy and human and that's the fun and that's why you go back to trusting teams and why the teamwork matters so much because sometimes we can beat up ourselves or get stuck in a negative mindset and all you need is one person to walk over and be like hey worthy rival right so the nice thing about worthy Rivals is it's subjective you can choose whichever person whichever company you want you don't have internal competition but you can have attorney work internal Rivals you know where there are other people that you compare yourselves to and you're trying to get better um uh but you don't want to stab each other in the back get angry when somebody else gets a promotion like we've all had that we've all had that you know deep down inside we see when somebody gets a promotion when we didn't right um even if we weren't even up for it um uh that's that's a that's a sign where necessary change needs to happen uh in our mindset uh it's easier to do than you think and when you get in the habit of it it's absolutely wonderful tell someone I need help like I think it is one of us it's one of these skills that is becoming fast lost especially amongst a younger generation which is the skill to ask for help you know we're all trying to act so tough you know this this nation over indexed on the whole rugged individualism thing you know um where we define success as visual success and and most of our metrics most of our incentives and almost every job are individual incentives there you know there's no team bonus there's an individual bonus if you hit your numbers you know um and uh I think we've we've overdid it quite frankly uh and I think it's the pendulum needs to come back uh and and and we have to remember that we're a team we're members of teams we're members of families remember communities or members of societies and this is where maslov got it wrong you know Maslow's hierarchy of needs he says you know fundamentally at the bottom of the pyramid is food and shelter um and he put you know third you know third up the rung he put a a uh relationships well I've never heard of anyone Dying by suicide because they were hungry I've heard of people talking about suicide because they were lonely so in other words it can't be right and at the top you have self-actualization how or like I'm all self-actualized looking down at the rest of you who aren't at the top of their period what about shared actualization you know and the mistake he made is that there's a paradox which is every moment of every day we are both individuals and members of groups and every day we have to reconcile that do I put myself first at the expense of someone else or do I prioritize someone else at the expense of myself and the answer is you're right you're wrong and there's a whole group of people that says no no you always take care of yourself first because if you're not healthy you can't help others and there's another group of people says no you always help others first because unless you help them they won't be there for you it's a paradox it doesn't work it's not so clean um and this is what we have to reconcile every day and this is why finding balance and managing it and the stresses and trains but the the challenge of asking for help and relying on our community really really matters my my definition of faith is that knowing you're on a team even when you don't know who all the players are we are surrounded by people who love us and will take care of us you just have to ask sometimes because sometimes they don't know that we need it we like many um made most of our money from in person and Live Events and workshops and of course that instantaneously disappeared um and so we like many were forced to Pivot um and we took advantage of online learning but we wanted to do it consistent with our own values um we did live classes um because we wanted to retain some sort of human connection as opposed to just on-demand classes um we called up people who we knew who work whose work we admired and we said you're struggling too why don't you come and do you share your your Genius on our platform um and it became a very Cooperative thing but there's a few tactics that I learned um to get from A to B that were really helpful that I never would have done if I didn't have that extreme pressure so one of the things we did is we we shared with the team the vision um which we had um and then we said to the whole team uh we can't do this alone this is this is literally a team effort and so what I want is I want 15 ideas from each person in the next 48 hours about how we can deliver on that vision and the team freaked out 15 ideas and 48 hours and if they wanted to work in teams I was fine with that um and I and and the reason for that is um the pressure you know if I gave them three weeks well they would have all done the work the 48 hours before anyway so you know uh uh so that was academic but the important thing was the reason for 15 ideas is because if I only ask for two or three or three or four those would be the same ideas I came up with um uh and I wanted it's the idea that 11 12 and 13 that were the brilliant ones and when we came together to report out we did it in sort of a unique way I sort of gave this little speech where I said okay um uh this is not a competition this is about contribution if one person has six Amazing Ideas and you have none instead of being angry say thank you because they just saved your job because they had a great idea also what I learned is that there's a there's a difference between somebody who has an idea and someone who's good at executing an idea and the reality is the most creative people in the team that could come up with the ideas weren't the best at executing them and the ones that didn't have that many ideas they were great at executing ideas so it became really interesting and to see who are my creators and who are my executors from that one meeting and we played Boggle rules if you've ever played the game Boggle if somebody else has your word you just skip over it and move on I said if somebody says your idea don't bother saying well I had that idea too I'm not keeping score I don't care simply move on and tell me something else on your list and we only let people report out two or three ideas at a time that way we could sort of get a flavor and what ended up happening was people would build on the ideas that they heard and the set of ideas that we had at the end became our ideas nobody could claim them anymore because we'd all sort of tinkered with them and then we broke them into three buckets green yellow and red a green idea was an idea we could execute with the money we had and we could execute it within the week a yellow idea was an idea that needed a little more resource probably take a week to a month and a red idea no matter how good it was was too expensive or take too long and we just parked it and said we'll deal with those one day and we just took all our green ideas and executed them there are so many lessons that we've learned over the past year and a half to two years that I think prepare us to be ready for the next future um I got a kick out of during the height of covid uh the number of pundits who said during these unpredictable times I would smile and say all times are unpredictable there's never been a time that was predictable ever um all that happened was something that we didn't expect happened that reminded us that our lives and our work is unpredictable and to Future proof ourselves means being ready for the unpredictable um there's something called an infinite mindset and those with an infinite mindset Embrace surprise they find opportunity in the unexpected that when something goes Haywire they go oh what could we do with this versus a finite mindset which likes to exert control and keep things very very close and time frame short because they fear the uncertain they fear anything that's off the plan and one of the things that we have to do to Pro to Future proof ourselves is to embrace things that are surprises and embrace the opportunity in uncertainty the other thing that I think we have to learn on how to Future prove ourselves is how to deal with stress and how to deal with trauma um uh whether somebody did well during covid business this wise or whether they struggle business-wise all of us all of us suffered some sort of trauma and when I when covet first showed up I called a friend of mine who's active duty military and I asked him during when you're in combat what do you do to compartmentalize your emotions so you can stay Mission focused my business blew up in right in front of me and I had to focus on my mission of rebuilding my business I wanted to know how to control my emotions so I could get the work done that I had to get done and he gave me a very sobering warning he said no one can compartmentalize their emotions he says we can do it for a short period of time but everyone will suffer the trauma of combat sometimes many months after we get home and he said you will go through it maybe not now but you will go through it and uh sure sure enough about four or five months in um I started to feel extremely off my game um and uh I called him up and I said can I just ask you you know uh what are your symptoms when you go through the the the trauma of combat I asked no leading questions I simply said what are your symptoms he said well one I fall out of my sleep pattern for some reason I go to bed late for no reason and I don't want to get up in the morning and I thought to myself yep and he said I become unproductive and I rationalize it like oh you've been working hard it's okay if you have an unproductive day or two but then I have another and another and another and I thought to myself yep and he said I also become extremely anti-social I don't want to talk to anyone I definitely don't want to ask for help and I thought to myself yup and I realized I was going through depression I was afraid to use that word for fear that it sounded like a diagnosis but it was Little D depression that's exactly what I was going through which is why things weren't working and so I asked my friend again so how do you overcome it he said one you have to force yourself to get back into your sleep pattern and two you have to force yourself to ask people for help and that's exactly what I was doing and I reached out to friends that I trusted friends that I loved people who I knew were dispensers of good advice and I called them one by one and said I'm going through this what can I do I also reached out to friends who I knew were going through similar things and offered my support for them because that's one of the things I've learned in my career which is the best way to solve your problems is to help people who are going through the same thing and so to understand how to react under extreme stress to understand and build the relationship so that when you do go through something you know who to call my rule during covet and I called all my a-type personality friends and gave them my rule which is there's no crying alone and the question I would ask every one of you is if you start to cry who are you going to call who will you pick up the phone and just say I need to cry and tell them what's going on it is much healthier to know that someone will give you a shoulder and be there to support you no matter what you're going through there are many people in your industry who talk a good game they talk about relationships but let's be honest it's [ __ ] they just want to make the transaction and move on and uh they pretend that they care and they pretend it's you know that they care about their relationship when the reality is it's one and done and on to the next and that's what happened to me I I had a mortgage broker uh he sold me a mortgage he was recommended to me it's how most of us meet somebody you know uh uh and uh he was very nice and charming and was there with me and then my my sale went through and he called me up to congratulate me and I was feeling a little warm and fuzzy towards him and then as soon as he congratulated me said and if you could recommend me to anybody else I'd be really grateful like and he wasn't calling to congratulate me he was calling to remind me to put in a good word for him somewhere else like if he actually cared about me and my house then he would have just called me really excited that I got my house and if he wanted something from me he would have waited a week a week or two to ask the favor but the guy it became abundantly clear to me I'm in the human behavior business yes he never called me because he cared about me yeah and by the way I will never ever recommend him because it was never I realized that I was just a number on a spreadsheet and so if you actually care about building relationships then actually build relationships yeah you know um I remember when I was starting out in my career I had a young uh a little marketing consultancy and I came from an industry that pretended that they were good at everything the marketing world like literally they pretended they were good at everything whether they were or weren't and when I went out by myself it was important to me to be honest and clients would come and talk to me and say we want to hire you to do all these things and I'd say I'll do that when I'm really good at that pretty good at that I like doing that that I'm mediocre on that I suck at I highly recommend you hire another company to do that and I'm happy to partner with them and it made them want to do business with me more because you said no because I told them what I was good at what I was bad at where I was super honest and we've all had that experience where you want to hire somebody and they go you should let me introduce you to something it happened to me recently yeah I wanted a is it like something silly yeah you know I needed wallpaper yeah he highly recommended I called him up he came he gave me a quote he's like you know what I'm not the best at this thing and he gave me the number of somebody else yeah now all I want to do is work with him again and I keep giving out his phone number to other people even though I actually never did work with him yeah because what builds a relationship is an honest broker honesty is such a hard thing to get especially in a transaction business especially in a commodity business because it is just volume and numbers yeah and that when you actually find an honest one all you want to do is help them build their book of business even though you may never do business with them and that's what a lot of finite-minded folks in your business don't get yeah which is you may never sell me a mortgage but I'll become your biggest champion because you made it this far in a video I want to celebrate you most people start and don't finish most people never actually follow through most people say they want something but they don't ever do the work to actually get it but you're different you are special believe Nation you made it here all the way to the end and I love you so as a special celebration if you put a hashtag believe down in the comments Below on this video I will showcase you and celebrate you somewhere on the screen in a future video because you are awesome for some incredible Alex hermosi motivation check the video right there next to me I think you'll love it continue to believe and I'll see you there they just keep going and so to the same degree you probably do things every single day that you should not be doing and so what I want to introduce to you is a concept of the anti-routine as the most productive routine that is humanly possible for you

Channel: Evan Carmichael

Views: 17,883

Keywords: entrepreneur, yt:cc=on, evancarmichael, Simon Sinek, Evan Carmichael, believe, success, evan carmichael morning motivation, #Entspresso, simon sinek motivation, success motivation, entrepreneur motivation, entrepreneur mindset, simon sinek optimism, entrepreneurship development, simon sinek 2022, how to balance work and life, simon sinek motivation madness, entrepreneur mindset motivation, success motivation 2022

Id: ShVHYW1isi8

Length: 160min 43sec (9643 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2023