Start With Why: Part 1 | Book Club with Simon

here we go everyone how are you and welcome to the first start with y book club discussion part 1 of 6 parts during these crazy times I hope everybody was able to put together their own little book club my goal with this was that we had an opportunity a forced reason to talk to people connect with people and spend some time with people talking about something other than kovat I wrote start with why I wrote it more than 10 years ago but it came out 10 years ago and I was thinking of doing a 10 year anniversary edition and so I have to reread it and I have to edit it and I thought well if I have to reread it wouldn't it be nice to read it with everyone so thank you so much for joining the goal of today is to answer all of the questions you have or a lot of the questions that you have and we're live so I'll take some live questions - the thing that I'm loving the most right now is just the number of people in the number of countries I mean we've got Tehran we've got India we've got the Philippines we've got Scotland we've got all over the United States we've got hungry we've got Paris it's just unbelievable and I'm fully aware that some of you are up very early in the morning but for this so thank you very much I've got my notes here I'll tell you a little bit about I'll still here I'll tell you a couple little stories first so when I first wrote start with why I didn't realize when I first started writing that I was writing a leadership book I thought I was writing a communications book and it was only as I really started to do the research and get into it did I realize that it's great leaders who communicated in this way wasn't just great marketers and it really struck me just how much of the world around us people who attempt to influence our behavior with manipulation and as many of you know that is the primary subject of the first part of start with Y so we're going to be doing questions about part one okay we have some questions that people had sent in already but feel free to give me some of live questions happy to take them okay Sarah what's my first question Warren from Worcester England yes maybe it's easier for me to read it okay Warren from Worcester England said within the introduction you talk about leadership specifically there are leaders and there are those who lead in the current climate of social distancing what advice or texts and techniques can you recommend now we have to lead our teams remotely so there is no question that having to lead a group of people remotely is more difficult I mean for years I've been preaching the importance of iBall leadership roaming around the office calling talking to people but in these times where we can't physically do that we have to do the second best thing which is to try and connect with people with our voices I actually think is nice and wonderful as video conferences I think a phone call is as powerful if not more powerful and leaders who are leading in this these conditions pretend you're roaming the halls in other words pick up the phone and call people check in on people it's really important to check check in on people not just about work but just to see how they're doing it's a remarkable thing remember leaders care about human beings not just about the work that they're doing so especially people who you know may be living alone right now we being alone and being lonely are not the same thing they are alone we want to help them not feel lonely and whether it's the middle of the day or the end of the day calling your folks and saying hey how are you just checking in on you and letting them talk just being in the ear to listen to this is one of the most powerful things that someone can do especially in these times let's have a question let's take one from I have Pavel and Justyna from Warsaw Poland asked in Chapter one you emphasize the role of planning and use an analogy of a Japanese car of Japanese car factories planning well ahead of their moves is there a country right you think is doing this kind of planning well with regard to the current pandemic well I think it's interesting it you know has any is anybody doing planning well now planning in the middle of it is sort of a funny it's a funny thought but just as the the Toyota factory planned for something to work out right before it got to the end where the American factory just used this mallet to put the door in place I hate to say it but that's kind of like what it looks like right now in the east and the West in Asia South Korea China they really sort of had a plan and stuck to it and adapted as they went we in the West seem to be reacting a lot more and taking a rubber mallet to things so ironically it looks exactly the same as I wrote about in the book hello from Kurdistan from Erbil I love it this is amazing Emily and Bruce can we be flawed and still inspire oh what a great question we're all flawed there is no such thing as a perfect leader there's no such thing as a somebody who always starts with why we're human were susceptible to insecurity and ego and fear and doubt and all the things leadership is a journey like so many others and yes of course of course you can be flawed and still inspired in fact every great leader that I've ever written about or know about every single one of them was flawed Steve Jobs was deeply flawed Martin Luther King was flawed the Wright brothers were flawed they're all flawed and I think it raises a the interesting question which is is it you know we can still follow and be inspired by people despite their flaws I think the the we hope that they can take accountability and responsibility for their flaws but but yes we're all deeply flawed let's take a live question let's see what we got here go ahead your career how did that come about and when did you know it was time to find a new path ah so someone asked I fell out of love with my career how did that happen and how did I get on the path to get back on I don't know how it happened I think it happens to a lot of us and I think it's unpredictable I think many of us fall out of love with the work that we're doing I actually see this more in senior people than junior people believe it or not where they've been doing the same thing they've had lots of promotions they had all the bonuses they're probably making a good living and they you know rinse wash repeat they know how to do it and it's actually later in their careers that they start asking themselves why the heck am I doing this like what's this all for and I think they have a crisis a purpose Junior my though those things are on their mind for sure there's so much excitement getting a job getting the first bonus winning the first client things like that that sometimes purpose takes a takes a backseat in my case I'd been doing what I was doing for many years I had I had my own business it was a little marketing consultancy and and I think I was on autopilot I don't know but I the way I fell out of love it wasn't it was it's like I didn't want to wake up and do it again and and it was very embarrassing because superficially in my life was good I own my own business I made an OK living we had great clients we did great work and I didn't want to tell people that I'd fallen out of love with my work because I didn't want to sound like a crybaby like because things were seemed to be good and it wasn't until a dear friend of mine came to me and expressed concern for me did it give me a safe space to express how I actually felt and so it's the series of strange events that led me down the path to writing this book I never intended to be an author I never intended to write any books let alone as many as I've written it was an accident so I think one of the reasons that the message of why has resonated with so many people is that it's deeply human this was not an academic exercise and you know I have no advance degrees from any fancy universities and it wasn't commercial it wasn't I didn't put it out there with the hope that you know I could build a business around it it was really just the desire to spread a message that I knew resonated with me and resonated with my friends that's where we find myself today you and ask me another one or shall I do what for the paper sure I'll do another question here when you take a pen here about this one this one this one this one here we go Club de lectura dolos dragonis 13 people from all over Sweden oh my goodness I love it I love that you named your book club I love this I love this what is your experience with acquisitions how can two or more different cultures and Y's be combined into one such a good question you know it's so funny when companies choose to merge they they evaluate what they both do they look at the market opportunities they look at the money that they can make but rarely do they ever evaluate the unions of their cultures and almost always the reason mergers or acquisitions tend to fail or or not be worth the money that they expected it to be is because of these mergers of cultures you can't take two completely different cultures and expect the people who work here and belong and work here and belong to get along with each other and share all the same values because they don't the ways I've seen mergers work their best is when is when there's a matching of cultures when when when there's a shared set of values or if one of the companies has been so poorly led for so long that the the culture is basically a shambles and and then the hopefully the company that that buys it has a strong culture and those those people can be subsumed into the existing culture it's pretty much the only way but it's happened so often and fail so often big companies small companies it doesn't matter culture clash and this is what we forget we forget this all the time companies are simply collections of people it's not just the product it's not just the marketed opportunity it's a group people have to work together with another group of people that's why we hire carefully so if we know that we have to hire carefully to fit culture how can we just assume that you can merge with another company as if you just hire 10,000 people all at once and expect everybody to get along it doesn't work that way yes go ahead there's a live question from the why so sassy book club in LA and the UK what companies do I like now that start with why there is there's a there's a list and there they tend to be younger companies I think the concept of purpose and why is is is a more important subject for younger companies I think sweet green the salad company I think they're pretty wonderful their founders are very purpose-driven and made and make a lot of business decisions with their purpose in mind they're all about connecting people to fresh food and supporting local farms and it's very community driven this is not necessarily good for business because they source their vegetables from individual farms and if one farm cannot supply all of the all of the vegetables they need then they have to go to a second farm so in New York City for example but the tomatoes you get uptown may not be the same tomatoes you get downtown they can actually maybe different farms because of their Drive for for that kind of quality so this hurts their ability to to get economies of scale but they're so devoted to it that's what they do I think Airbnb is pretty close driven and they're about connecting people and I like them a lot of those you know the companies that we tend to have warm feelings to wards that I think tend to be very purpose-driven we also have some Purpose Driven leaders now that are kind of remarkable and goes back to the question was can somebody be flawed and a good leader and the answer is yes Elon Musk you know clearly has vision and clearly inspires people and despite his flaws I think he's he's doing something pretty special here's one from DJ quarantine DJ quarantine I hope you're actually doing DJ stuff while in quarantine what if you never really had a why besides making money but you have a successful company now how can you establish your why ah great question first of all every single person on the planet has a why where it's it's innate in all of us our why is the sum total of how we were raised it's the it's the the lessons we learned from our parents the experiences we had that make us who we are so you do have a wide DJ quarantine you've probably just not focused on it you would you said you've built a business driven by money which is fine you can have financial success but do you feel successful do you feel like it's all been worth it like what you can look back at your life and when when you're on your deathbed and say that was a life worth living the opportunity is not to invent a why it's to discover a why I talked about the why discovery process because the patterns exist exist in us we all we just have to go looking for them so you don't establish it you simply go panning for gold is what you do it's a this process of discovery should we take a live questions hallo Mombasa Kenya Kili Enterprises he's a good one from nadir that here who Rock who re excuse me how can you detect toxic people during a job interview ooh that's a tough one because sometimes people are really good at faking it you know I like asking when I go when I interview people I think it's a good question to interview when you're the interviewer or the interviewee which is what surprises can I expect I think is a good question and and watch how they answer also my favorite question to ask when I when I would interview for jobs is do you love your job I would always ask the interviewer do you love your job and and I'd listen to how they answer yeah yeah yeah I like my job a lot which is different than love it was really funny to watch HR people who were interviewing me squirm when I when I would ask that if they loved their job and they loved the culture they're supposed to be there selling the company to me that was I remember those experiences but the discovery of toxicity I mean find find out listen to the order in which they speak that doesn't mean the necessarily toxic but you'll know that their priorities you know when you hear somebody you're interviewing with talk about how much they care about people and they if they take care of their people then will will will will have great performance if you have if you hear somebody talk about we're a performance-driven company and of course our people are important then you can see the what they prioritize numbers over people listen to the order in which people speak human beings are really funny we kind of speak in the order of the things that matter to us most so listen to the order in which people list their priorities you can ask the question what matters most to the to the leaders of this company and let's see if they say performance and growth first if they say our people in our culture first that'll tell you a lot about the culture that you're interviewing to be inside let's take another question do one from the page here making good headway here andrew redfoot asks in part one of your book you talk about the difference between aspiration and inspiration while clearly delineating the differences between the two clearly there are some similarities between aspiration and inspiration is it possible to take as aspiration and turn it into into instant inspiration if so how so let's dissect that aspirational messages it's a little bit like motivation and inspiration I think aspirational messages I think tend to be external right or future-oriented let me think that's through aspirational when I talk about aspiration that's a promise it's a promise of a future self so like you know a gym membership a gym will advertise and say you could look like this but I think aspirations tend to be external yeah I'll stick with that aspirations tend to be external where inspiration is something deep inside it's values-based I I'm struggling to think of an aspirational message that's values based like be a good person is a weird aspiration so I think inspiration is what drives us it's in its it comes from inside of us it's based on our values and our beliefs aspirational messages or things we want to achieve it's things we want to get it's places we want to go I think it's very external and so can aspirational messages become inspiration I mean if we sat here and talked about it long enough I'm sure we could find a small Venn diagram but I think they're pretty distinct ideas and I think a lot of people who communicate marketers leaders very often confuse the two and they think by offering something someone a promise of a future state is the same as being inspirational so for example when I talk about a future state that's different it's not aspirational it's it's it's inspirational it's it's it's I don't know how to just yeah that's the best I can do is one is values based on insight and the other one is external yes thank you somebody who so he gave me a nice answer yes Thank You Lori Bell you said it better than me inspiration is internally validated the aspirations are probably more likely to be externally validated like that thank you very much do you have one for me Sara Joel drap Kenyetta fear now and where does a wife it is so Joel asked when fear is employed facts are incidental how would I relate that right now um fear is a normal human emotion and the manipulations are the use of fear to change people's behavior for personal gain and what we need now is leadership that gives us facts good and bad simply painting rosy pictures is not really what we need human beings can deal with good news and human beings can do deal with bad news we can adjust we're very very adaptable even for harsh conditions what we struggle most with is is uncertainty uncertainty for us is very difficult and this breeds way more fear and insecurity because we don't know how to plan for uncertainty we can plan from bad if if there's a hurricane or a typhoon heading towards we know what to do it's gonna be bad so we board up the windows we we we know what to do we know how to prepare we go seek shelter even if we're scared but telling us that something Bad's gonna happen but we don't know when that's when we start to become paranoid but it's also when we start it breaks down cooperation because when we have shared hardship we can cooperate but when when we don't know what what's happening and so Mis it's okay if facts change especially now it's Kove it is a moving target some things that were true before are no longer true and some things that we thought weren't true are true the facts are changing and what we need from our leaders is to simply say we're fairly sure we're very sure we're not sure but here are the facts as we have them we'll keep you updated we can react to those and the consistency of those facts is really important having cooperation amongst our leaders especially for all of us who are from countries there's national leadership and there's local leadership there needs to be communication between them so then there can be coordination but also that we're not getting different information because again that breeds uncertainty that breeds paranoia craziness and we lock down and become much more selfish in those times somebody asked me if I coughed I have strained my voice so my throat is a little rough but I am very healthy thank you for asking here's one that was submitted from Sara s from the UK when you were thinking about manipulations and the different forms that that are out there how did you arrive at the cat occurs at the categorization or types you discuss in the book were there any pre-existing thinking that you built upon these up built upon these or built them that I came up them I don't think the list is exhaustive to be honest I think the list of manipulations there's we could probably come up with a lot more I came from the marketing and advertising world and so I was familiar with many of these and as what always happens in a creative process as I was writing I was writing about things that didn't fit and so new categories were formed so I was familiar with some of them as I said but-but-but-but the list is by no means exhaustive I wanted to give a broad selection to show that they're diverse they're plentiful they're common I think almost every single manipulation that I talk to in this first part we've either been subjected to ourselves or at least are aware of they're not unusual remember manipulations aren't always bad but sometimes they're overused and can be bad when that's all that is employed somebody asked me when is it appropriate to use manipulation well if you have children there's a lot there's a lot going on there you know I'm not against promotions and sales and things like that but I like it when companies are honest about it for example it's our end-of-year sale we need to make space for the new stuff we're dropping the prices so so these things can move off the shelves we fully aware of what's happening the company can still be an inspiring organization with inspiring leadership but they want to move the product off the shelf so they can make room for new product there's nothing wrong with that and we're definitely tempted to buy the stuff that's cheaper of course but when companies only rely on price to move things it's a race to zero for those organizations so manipulations aren't always nefarious yes Olivia from Raul yes where do we know where rolls from doesn't say okay one and how can I introduce tart with Maya to my kids ten six I love that how can I introduce start with y to my kids ten and six yes so you know how your kids are oily is asking you why why daddy why daddy why daddy why daddy well you can do the same here's the interesting thing instead of asking why that's the question what the question why ironically is not the question you ask when you want to get to why you actually ask what why is an emotional question and it elicits emotional answers but what is a rational question and people can think it through so for example I'll give an example why were you home late shut up dad right versus what were you doing that your home light was out with my friends so what question they'll answer a why question sometimes gets an emotional response and as any of us who have ever been asked the question why at work it can sometimes make us defensive like why did you to make that decision why did you do it that way sometimes it's a legitimate question but we're taken aback because we think it's it's it's a criticism so you can ask your kids what were you thinking that you decided to do that or what's on your mind or tell me what the what your big idea is we can start asking those questions now Oh persons why isn't fully formed probably until their mid to late teens so the idea of 10:00 and 6:00 there why isn't formed but it's being formed so what I really really love is getting in the habit with little kids for them to understand the reasons why they do things for them to sit down and explain let's say one of them has a temper tantrum and to sit down and say tell me what happened that that you got so upset as opposed to why are you screaming right what's what's going on in your mind that you're getting so upset and to get the kid to open up to say well I'm frustrated well what's frustrating well you know my sister took that away well tell me what tell me what's bad about that and you go through that conversation what an amazing skill set they get to learn for when they grow up I love that question let's see what else we have in here somebody wrote Juliana B asked would you consider to write a children's book well I'm currently I'm currently editing start with why for what I'm calling it as start with why for people still in the school it'll be a combination of find your why and start with why so I'm working on that right now but in terms of a younger children series I wrote together is better for adults even though it looks like a children's book but I've heard many stories of people who actually read it with their kids to teach them about teamwork which really means a lot to me what I'd love to do a children's book I fantasize about doing a children's book for a while so probably one day in the future yes Lorenzo Laboon yes the essay sww book club what what examples am I gonna use for manipulation inspiration in part one in the newly revised edition you know it's funny you say that because as I was reading it myself I read it a couple days ago I was some of the examples are definitely outdated you know I talked about going to the store to buy a camera we all used to buy cameras and have sort of poor quality cameras on our phones back in those days now nobody really buys a camera unless you're into photography so I think I need to make adjustments like that that are about how we actually live our lives but I was struck by even how some of the examples were a little bit outdated they still resonated in other words we could still understand it it's kind of like reading history even though the facts have changed and we lay you know the examples are different what I'm going through is not to completely change them all I'm going to go to the ones that to make them more relatable but even if it's a historical example as long as the lesson is clear I'll probably leave it so if in fact I'm open to suggestions so if anybody wants to write in if you have suggestions about examples that I could use or if you found things completely irrelevant please don't just call in or write in and say that was a relevant change it I'd like some suggestions of solutions I'm open to everything so that is exactly what I am going through right now let's oh we have here career IQ book club hello career IQ book club looks like you're from the Caribbean Aruba is a small island in the Caribbean I've been to Aruba and our economy is 88% dependent on tourism within the current kovat crisis in less than a week this industry is completely shut down due to the fact that we opted to close our borders as a way to fight ko vat19 crisis this means that our primary source of income is completely gone how can we use our Y as a destination to overcome this challenge so one of the things that crisis provides is an opportunity for reinvention in my newest book in in infinite game I wrote about this concept called existential flexibility by the way I'm going through something very similar you know my primary source of income was public events well those don't exist both other people's and my own we had the mindset to are going everything we we shot everything down there and so one of the things that I've been watching is who's doubling down on an old business model and who's saying okay this is an amazing opportunity to bring our Y to life so the Y of Aruba is not just pretty beaches and nice weather there's plenty of other places that than that there's there's more to it it's the culture of the people it's who you are it's it's where you come from and the question is is how can you bring that to life in other ways I think it's an amazing opportunity so there's a few ways to go through reinvention number one just as an aside I'm I attended a meeting for an arts organization this week and there was a consultant there too talking to us about fundraising and it was amazing because she basically gave the exact same presentation that she wouldn't give she would have given three months ago and it was just so irrelevant I mean we couldn't even think about it and so the opportunity is what would a rubra do if there was no such thing as tourism like start from scratch if there was no such thing as tourism and people never traveled ever again what kind what how would a rubra sell itself and I and I highly recommend asking people who are on the front lines of tourism it's not the people who are in government it's not the people who run companies who are gonna solve this problem you want to ask people from the front lines people who are in it everyday they have lots of great ideas so one of the things that we did in our company and I got this idea from my friend Jen Waldman which is take a group of people people who have a go-get-'em attitude who believe some good can come of this and ask them to come up with 15 ideas each in 48 hours of what Aruba could become of what kind of economy Aruba could build if there's no such thing as tourism 15 ideas each and then when you get together as a group you explain this is about contribution not competition it doesn't matter if we like six per one of six about one person's ideas and none of another person's ideas it doesn't matter we're all putting this together to help each other that's the idea it's about contribution not a competition and I told the story to my team we did this as a team everybody on my team had to give 15 new ideas in 48 hours and I told the team about a story that I that I learned from the Marine Corps I visited OCS Officer Candidate School which is where the Marine Corps selects its officers and they were telling me that when they evaluate a future officer a future leader in the Marine Corps they're looking at their leadership skills in other words their ability to ask for advice take counsel and then make a decision and be decisive but they're also looking for followership skills which is they're looking for people to contribute ideas and if the leader selects an idea or a course of action that is different than the one that you think is the right one it doesn't matter you put your idea aside and you work tirelessly to see that the leaders decision is successful and if it fails you don't sit back and say well I told you so you work tirelessly to work to achieve success so this is the story I told that we're in this together and I only asked for two or three ideas from each person at a time because I didn't want one person to go through a whole list because I knew a lot of people had the same ideas and the reason I asked for 15 it sounds like a lot is because I knew that if I asked for three from each people from each person that aisle there would be so much overlap I'd get very few ideas the really really good ideas happen lower down on the list when people were really thinking hard because there was a ton of overlap and on the on the easy stuff the easy stuff I could have come up with I wanted my the the everybody's really great thinking so I would go to the people of Aruba put together a group put together multiple groups and ask them to come up with 15 ideas in 48 hours each of what Aruba could be like if there was no such thing as tourism and see what happens I think you'll be surprised oh there's here's one I've gone from ma cheeky this is the cheeky cheeky breeky book club in Prague I love it Prague is a wonderful city my grandparents were from Prague my last name is Czech okay why should I know my why when I'm either an entrepreneur nor a manager but a regular person or employee who just wants to improve I'm gonna sneeze I can feel it it might happen in the middle okay I'll take a little drink first of all you don't have to learn your wife you don't want to learn it the first criterion of being a leader is my friend General George Flynn explains to me the first criterion to be a leader is you have to want to be one I never try and twist anybody's arm to learn there why even if I know in the core of my being that it'll help them whether it's to find joy in their life join their relationships joy in their work my rule is if you you have to ask me if you want to find your way so I'll of course help my friends but and I tell my friends the answer is gonna be yes but I'm you have to you have to ask and so to the cheeki breeki book club if you don't wanna know it you don't want to know it that's right but what I do know is is that knowing your why is and having that sense of foundation it builds confidence I mean Iram I can think back that when I learned my why the first thing that happened to me was this overwhelming sense of calm a calm confident confidence came over me I'm much more certain about decisions I make personally and professionally because at the end of the day it doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or you're or a manager you're a human being and this is a human this is a human experience so I hope you do want to learn you're why one day because I can tell you that it's a magical experience and it puts you on an entirely new path for the rest of your life yes from the evil book club in Georgia yes manipulating why our company's still manipulating even though we're aware that we're being manipulated because it works because it works and I think that one of the biggest ways to avoid being manipulated is simply to be aware of the manipulations and we can still choose to do it I mean look I still buy I'm still tempted to buy things because of all the manipulations you know one that I would add to the list that has that's not in the book is scarcity you know only three left you know that that one how many times have we all gone online to buy something like buy it now there's only four left we all panic you know gotta get it got to get it even though we don't need it scarcity is a way of manipulating people you know I'm I'm I fall for it every time not every time but I still for it fall for it a lot because it works that's why companies do it but I think the more we're aware of it and when we go shopping or when we are voting or when we're making decisions or when others are trying to get behavior out of us like our bosses to be aware of it means that we can still do those things but we we can go into it with eyes wide open I think it's really manipulative manipulative when we go into it with eyes shut Lennon Reyes can I find my Y at forty three you can find your Y at any age you like I've done Y discoveries with people in their 60s and 70s there's no right time or wrong time to find your why the time to find your Y is when you want to find it so if you're 43 years old and you want to find your why you know absolutely absolutely you have more information to call upon to help help you find it it's actually a little a little easier so the question was from Aspen 1955 hello Aspen 1955 I hope you're in Aspen beautiful part of the world if you are if you're not you should go there sometime has my why change well here's the great thing about a Y it never changes I've tweaked the words a tiny bit over the years but fundamentally my Y is exactly the same as it's always been my entire life we are who we are are Y a little of the experiences we had growing up as I said right at the beginning and so you can't change who you are you can make decisions to be more in line with who you are but you are who you are and when you're out of balance when you're not following your why people can tell our friends say DOS it's like I don't know you anymore I it's like it's like I don't know who you are that's because we're making decisions that are inconsistent with our Y so the reason to learn our one of the reasons to learn our Y is that we can start making decisions that are more consistent with our Y and the more to sit the more consistent we are with our Y then people will know who we are people will say you are authentic you are have integrity you are honest people can start they can make predictions about how you'll react because you're relatively consistent so my Y has never changed just like yours has never changed the opportunity is to discover what it is oh and that's a good question and my Y is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them so that each of us can change our world for the better and that's my standard my standard for the books I write the things that I do even this my goal is to inspire so I hope that you're feeling inspired as we do this that is the ultimate compliment you can ever pay me because it goes right to my why it's it speaks right to me do you have a question yes laurens black row black rose fly low florence black rose great name how should an artist apply there why - to gain audience is that with the question so artists communicate not in words but in whatever their chosen form is they may communicate in dance or song or or in a painting but it's you know an artist that taps into their why the opportunities how to bring that to life so one thing artists can do is learn a I would really need to learn to do is actually learn the words for their why because what it does is it helps provide the context for the work that they do so even work that fails if you understand where it's born out of you can still respect it so for example I'm a huge fan of modern dance love it I go to BAM the Brooklyn Academy of Music as often as I can to go see dance I've also walked out of more things from BAM than anywhere else before and yet I love the organization because I know they're why they're why is a large part about about challenging me challenging their audiences and sometimes they show me things that challenge me and they've also they're also challenging the the choreographers to push push their boundaries I know that going in so even when I see something that I hate and I walk out of I'm still grateful to BAM how amazing is that that's something I walked out of and I'm still grateful so the the value of of knowing your why and being able to communicate it to others provides the context from where the work comes from and then you attract more people who believe that so if you are an artist please please please learn to put your why into words and thank you for all the lovely compliments how inspired you are thank you sir Isaac office ooh that's very nice of you Jill polgár so nice of you to say so thank you very very much so kind you're warming what you're warming my heart and risk I love them too yeah around pivoting using your mind pivot during for company that leaders during time of crisis yeah okay so how to use your why to pivot in time of crisis okay so let me give you a tangible example so it makes more sense so what I do is public speaking it's one of the things I do but it's one of what I do what I do is public speaking right so if I were to pivot based on what it limits my creativity right so I'm pivoting based on what really my only options are to give speeches online so the only opportunity I have is to put on a conference online and charge money for tickets for people to come to my conference on line doesn't that seems very limited and it doesn't seem repeatable I mean how many of those could I even do so so you don't want to pivot on what because it limits creativity so I'm pivoting on why so my wise to inspire people to do the things that inspire them so we're asking ourselves not how do we do more public speeches online we're asking ourselves what ways can we take advantage of in this modern world to inspire people to do the things that inspire them and what we're doing is we're going through everything we've done and we realize we have tons of content that we never realized had any value to the outside world for example we found a way to do 362 reviews for our own company we invented it for ourselves and we do it for ourselves well we we can share that with other people we found a way to do evaluations we call it perform we call it growth and performance GNP I'm it's super simple one sheet way to evaluate it well we can share that with people we're realizing that our work the importance of being inspired not giving a speech the importance of being inspired is more valuable now than ever we're doing a book club that's that was born out of this pivot we're realizing that starting helping people start their Huddle's teaching people how to do Huddle's teaching people how to do Huddle's because we've been doing them for years we're a virtual team is something we can offer even showing up for five minutes or 10 minutes at the beginning of someone's huddle is something we can offer so you can see I'm poor we're pouring with ideas and by the way these aren't all my ideas these came from the team but the point is is because we're pivoting based on what we believe to inspire people to do the things that inspire them we're finding lots of opportunities that we can bring to life in a digital world but if I pivot it based on what it'd be all over and I and I see that happening all over the place which is companies are trying to like go back to the question about Aruba like how do we do tourism now you don't you don't do tourism now the question is where what is your why and how do you how do you bring that to life in a world where there is no tourism that's gonna yield a lot of great ideas let me take one from me new menu asks how do you differentiate between a leader who inspires and a leader who depends upon their charisma it takes time and the news cheating a little bit because that's deeper in the book and so I haven't read that section yet but if I go by memory charisma is is you know people confused deep belief in something and high energy and sometimes leaders with high energy are they're fun they're fantastic they're fun to be around we we we feel we feel inspired in the moment but I wouldn't call it inspiration I'd call it excitement and motivation because very very often after they leave we just would go back the way things were inspiration lasts longer I think of inspiration a little bit like love right like you don't like your kids every day but you love your kids every day motivation and excitement and energy those things can be fun and exciting and wonderful we want to be around those people but when times are tough and when the energy is down are we still inspired to follow them and and help build the vision so I think the the difference between inspiration and and charisma is revealed in time hold on that was one that there's a Jean Tuttle here I had the pleasure of seeing you at Travis Air Force Base a great base many years ago yeah it's been many years since I was at Travis as continue as a continued member of the Air Force a medicine mmm AFA medicine your message still Renee resonates amongst the team thank you so much that's so nice of you to say I have a very warm spot for the Air Force in my heart the Air Force was one of the first organizations to discover my work they discovered the concept of why months after I first articulated it and were big time early adopters so I've had a long relationship with the Air Force and now with the with the other branches as well so big love the question was when are you doing the next book club we put up a schedule the next one will be on the 11th which is next Saturday they're all every Friday at the exact same time except next week because of the holidays we're doing it on Saturday so next weeks on the 11th on Saturday please join if you can and we will be doing part two of the book and then all the subsequent parts following and you know if this goes well maybe we'll do book clubs for the other books I haven't decided should we do some more sure let's do some more Lupe Hernandez yes what do you do when you're giving up on your why who I that's a hard one if you're giving up on your why I would there's two things I would recommend one is was it really your why like did you actually get it right because Y is so core to who you are and it helps you get out of bed in the morning that you may not have the energy to do it every day that I've definitely had that I definitely not wanted to do it but I never gave up on it I've definitely had days where I was exhausted and was fed up but I still I still believed in it so if you're giving up on your why I the first question I'd ask is whatever you articulated was that actually or why this and the second thing I would raise is please call a friend which is the if we're if no matter especially in these kovat times I think two things we all have to be we have to get really really good at which I think we've all got a little lazy because on Facebook and Instagram and we feel like we're connected with our friends because we see what they're doing but we don't actually call them and say hi you know we feel connected with our friends when we watch them on social media but we don't actually connect with our friends because they're on social media so I think we all got a little lazy I think one thing we all have to get better at is calling our friends and saying how are you are you okay and sometimes mustering up the courage to call somebody and say I'm not okay I'm having a behind day today can we just talk and sometimes sometimes it's just nice to say that loud or sometimes people just want to listen we just want to be heard like we don't have to have fix everything all the time I talked to a friend this morning who's really really struggling she's alone during kovat and she she's in pain but she has back problems and so she gave us out of bed in pain and she can't go see her doctor and and I can't fix anything there's nothing I can physically do to alleviate her or her state but I can just be there and listen and we got on FaceTime and we just talked and she cried a little bit and we just talked and it was just it's nice so please call people and please call them and and and take their call and they call you I think we have five more minutes we'll do a couple more questions and then we'll wrap it up Gabby from Baltimore yes Steve started with why inspiring people around him it's unclear to me how Apple inspires people so the question that Gaby asked is you can see how Martin Luther King inspired people but it is unclear how Apple inspired people so the question is I think there's two questions in there I can explain how Apple did it the other question is is does Apple still do it that's a question for another day you know if you look at the fierce loyalty that Apple used to command in all its products it was kind of amazing and it did for decades and I think one of the signs that Apple inspired is that people would stick Apple stickers on they're pcs from work because they didn't want anybody to think that they were a PC person they wanted everybody to know that they were an Apple person it was a state of mind it was a way of viewing the world it's the way we viewed ourselves Apple people view themselves as rebels as creatives it's why Apple was so attractive to artists and young people because artists and young people tend to view themselves as rebels are creative and when Steve Jobs died there's this weird sort of Princess Diana like outpouring of love people were leaving wreaths outside Apple stores I mean think about that for except for a second people were leaving wreaths for a billionaire outside his retail establishments he is crazy but the reality is is that the way that Apple communicated and the way the company was built in a culture of the company was really about challenging status quo and it's and it was born in their culture it wasn't just marketing marketing was the manner in which they communicated out loud so I had the opportunity to visit Apple headquarters just recently and there had a walk down the campus with a head historian and he was explaining to me that you know they hire people some from some of these big companies you know the Facebook's and the googles of the world and these people come in with their big salaries and their big egos and they tell you what they've done in the past and look at my resume and they're all fancy and Apple said to them we don't care what you've done in the past the thing we're curious about was what are you gonna do in the future and is that there's still that that pushed the boundaries rebellious spirit the question is do they still do it is it as strong as it used to be that's a different conversation I think we'll do one last question and we'll call it a day let's see do you have one yeah yeah Thomas from Srilanka level manager convey the idea why to the top management when the organization is lacking ah how can a middle level manager convey the why to top level management when the organization is lacking the why okay lots going on there so the question so it does happen where senior management has lost sight of the why that is true Microsoft under Steve Ballmer senior management had lost sight of the why but middle management still knew what it was especially those who'd been there for a long time and so the opportunity is still to is I talked about this in leaders elast the opportunities to be the leader you wish you had the opportunity is for you to start with walleye for you to ins by your team you to remind your team what makes this company great and where the company comes from in other words what is the origin of the company and why you fell in love with this company talking about personal connection say I love this company because when I first came here and talking about your personal connection and your connection to why is really the way you do it and and that creates these wonderful little teams that are starting with why and overtime you hope the tail can wag the dog which it generally does because what happens in these these higher performing teams is they management senior management either leaves them alone because they're doing well or they want to know what you're up to because you're doing well and sometimes some of those people are promoted out and moved to other teams and they take what they've learned and before you know it it starts to spread and the tail wag the dog this is exactly what happened at Microsoft it was kept alive by enough people and when Steve Ballmer left the the founding why came bursting back to life immediately thanks to all the middle managers who are keeping the flame lit and that is I think a perfect way to wrap up oh I'm apparently we're having a Wi-Fi issue sorry the video is choppy we will fix that before Saturday so if you've had choppy video I apologize this is an infinite game and we're learning every constant improvement constant improvement so we'll fix that by Saturday any other notes that I need to say reminder we're gonna do part two of start with y on Saturday April 11th so bring your questions make sure you get together with your book club before then to discuss it first because remember the whole point of this is that we have our book clubs it'll be at the same time 3 p.m. Eastern time in the United States if you want to watch any part of this R you watch it or if you missed it a friend missed it all of these book clubs will be available on youtube forever and we'll put them in all the other social media platforms if you want to revisit any part next week we're going to talk about an alternative perspective and this is where we start really getting into the introduction of why in the Golden Circle I'm looking forward to reading that chapter it's been a lot of years remember to send your questions to book club at simon Sinek calm that's book club at simon Sinek calm and of course we'll also be taking live questions as well thank you for joining me everyone this has been fun and inspiring so lovely to see you all from around the world you know what's so amazing is that i'm reading all of these cities and countries around the world and it's a strange feeling that we're all actually going through the same experience at the same time it actually makes me feel very close to everyone so thank you very very much for being here I hope to see you all again next week take care of yourselves take care of others we'll see you soon you

Channel: Simon Sinek

Views: 139,761

Keywords: simon sinek, live, start with why, inspiration, motivation, business, work life balance, work, career, personal development, growth

Id: q8UvLXVN0nY

Length: 56min 38sec (3398 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020