Start with Yourself: A Conversation with William Ury and Simon Sinek

hi i'm simon Sinek I'm an optimist and the author of start with why and leaders eat last everything I do is devoted to one single purpose to inspire people to do what inspires them and few people I've met in my career inspire me more than billiary I'm particularly excited because bill has a new book out called getting to yes with yourself and other worthy opponents and it's pretty amazing because I've had the benefit of getting to know bill and become friends with Bill and what's exciting is now bill has put in a lot of what I've learned in this in this amazing book and so I'm excited to talk to you Bill so that we can share with people some of what you've written about and what you've taught me over the years so thanks so much for sitting down with me it's a huge pleasure to be here with you today Simon so bill before before we get started I have a question for you which is I know your work I'm an admirer and lover of your work and all of your work is about you know other other people you know you negotiate with someone else you try and come to an agreement or a deal with another party there's pieces there's peace deals with some warring groups or parties what was what was the the impetus to write a book about not looking externally but looking internally well it's a good cruise ship because you know thirty years ago I probably wouldn't have written a book like this and but what happened was after Roger fish and I cooperated on getting to yes you know I went out in the world and I tried to apply it in all kinds of ways and you know coal mine strikes and boardroom battles and family feuds and civil wars the Cold War and what I found was that I became a kind of a specialist in how do you deal with difficult people difficult situations because the question most people had for me is okay I want to get to yes I want to cooperate I want to get to a a win-win I want to get to a mutual gain solution but the other side doesn't want to how do I deal with them so you know my next book after that was called getting past no dealing with difficult people and then over the years it kind of began to slowly dawn on me as I really looked at the question of what stops us what's the real obstacle to us getting to yes getting what we've truly want in life and I found that enough to say is that the biggest obstacle to us getting what we want in life to getting des is not what we think it is it's not that difficult person it's not that difficult organization they can be difficult for sure but the most difficult person is the person we look at in the mirror every morning it's right here it's us it's in our own very human very understandable tendency to react in ways that don't serve our true interests so why do we blame others then well I think it's first of all that's kind of almost like human nature I mean every conflict I've ever been in what's at the core of the conflict people pointing fingers at each other it's you know Democrats it's the Republicans Republicans it's the Democrats you know years ago when I was working on the Cold War I had a we used to get together American and Soviet kind of policymakers for quiet informal conversations to see if there's any way we could go to reduce tensions and reduce we it was a project called the avoiding nuclear war project at Harvard and I remember we used to get together and the first warning in fact the first day was just mutual recriminations I mean everyone was just it's your fault it's your fault is your fault your fault so what so one time I decided let's do an experiment here like I gave everyone the agenda the night before of the first day and I said 6:00 a.m. agenda session title is mutual accusations everyone is welcome to show up and everyone got the point and we kind of began to change that dynamic and that's what I think we need to do and the opposite of blame of course is taking responsibility oddly enough when we blame we might think that's powerful because I'm blaming the other person but you're actually subtly disempowering yourself because you're saying it's the other person's fault I don't have any stake in this but if you take responsibility which doesn't necessarily meaning blaming yourself it just means taking a constructive positive approach towards it you empower yourself and you're more likely to to get what you wanted to get to yes I had a kind of an argument with someone recently and at the conclusion of the argument you know I express regret and apologize for my role in and she responded back I'm sorry you were hurt and I was angry again because I can't apologize for how I feel really apologize for what right what you do you know and and I guess this is what it's about right just we have to take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions if we if we care to resolve that's it conflict that's it no I mean one of the toughest negotiations I ever had to engage in which partly inspired this book was I think you know my daughter Gabby she was born with a lot of medical problems she had like 15 major surgeries so we had to negotiate with all these doctors and nurses and bureaucracy and so and it was very easy for us as parents you know feeling you know we're blaming ourselves we were blaming the doctors who tended to play the lottery you know the nurse all these things going on for everything else going wrong then I learned it did no good I mean it did no good it didn't help her didn't help us so you know we began you know we took responsibility and said look okay you know the doctors under stress they're working at a dysfunctional system but you know we're responsible and once we took responsibility for ourselves started to calm down more we're much more effective in dealing with them much more effective and so to me that lesson of self responsibility is the lesson of self empowerment it seems like the hardest thing in the world to have to take responsibility for your own actions or your own contributions in a in a conflict right to actually say I'm I'm to blame partially yeah and that seems the ego doesn't want to go there that's it I mean I know that it's hard to do it in an interpersonal right you know just with somebody a friend you know or you know have an argument with somebody in the street or with a shopkeeper or whatever it is I can imagine it's vastly more difficult when there are stakes or pressures or external pressures and money or war or and all of these things yeah that's it it's a it's like there's an old gypsy curse it goes may you be in a conflict in which you know you are right and in in terms of blames I remember like going back to the us-soviet thing you know we'd go sometimes we'd say okay ok so we're partly you know you know we go as Americans okay so we've got we got some responsibility or we'd say that and the Soviets would say okay you're half right you know and the but but I think but I think the thing is is also distinguished responsibility is not thus taking responsibility doesn't mean necessarily blaming yourself it just means accepting that you are you know that you're part of it that it's yours that you're your co-creator of that situation even if maybe yours in mind you might be 1% of the problems yours you're still a co-creator that and that gives you the power to change it because once you take responsibility you can change once you're blaming you can't change you're just dependent on the other side to change in fact you're their prisoner and you know in negotiation the secret to power often is a concept we call your Batman your best alternative to a negotiated agreement in other words before you go into negotiation think through what am I going to do advance to advance my interests if for some reason I'm not able to reach agreement you know if I can't if I can't reach agreement with this particular organization on a job maybe I've got another job opportunity or if I can't reach agreement with one customer maybe got another customer one supplier another in other words knowing that you have that alternative it gives you a sense of confidence in freedom and the interesting thing is is that though I've taught that for about 30 years people often don't do it and why don't they do it because I just focused on the agreement they don't think about their Batna and I've come to realize that in fact maybe there's a psychological antecedent and this all goes back to again to yourself which is an inner batma which is a commitment to yourself that you're going to take care of your own needs which then makes you less psychologically dependent on the other side and then oddly enough like in a relationship if you're less dependent psychologically emotionally on your partner you're likely to have a better relationship because you care but you don't care that much that you're going to get highly treated every time you're together yeah I I mean for me the the analogy in my own sort of studying at work is you know I'm a firm believer that the great leadership requires one thing and one thing people is I think what characteristics two great leaders have you know and you know the charisma and vision and all these things but I know great leaders that aren't that charismatic I know great leaders that don't really have great long vision either you know they're kind of short on vision they have something that is not this big world-changing thing that you know we usually hail as great leadership but the one characteristics I'm combined characteristic I'm comfortable saying that all the great leaders I've looked at have is courage you know but then it begs the question where does courage come from and it's something very similar here which is the more I've set out to learn the more I realize that courage isn't this internal thing that you have to sort of go deep inside and find the courage to do something it really comes from having somebody knowing that someone's got your back that you know that someone just someone says to you I believe in you that gives you the courage it takes sort of big risks and say you know bombastic thing if somebody says I got your back right you know and this is sort of like the the leadership Batna it's like I think you know I know that some that I that if this doesn't work or if I feel I can't do it right there's someone there's something else there's someone else right and it and it allows for this remarkable courage to exude from a human and the best part is its reciprocal because couraged other person the other person as well and there's a cycle that exactly it starts to flow through you you know it's interesting too is because I think as Einstein who once said you know interestingly said the most important decision that every human being has to make is to decide whether or not the universe is in fact friendly and why did it why would I design say that he said it because he said look because if we decide that the universe we decide the universe is unfriendly because we can choose you know who knows what it's probably not but you could choose if you choose it's friendly you're likely to interact with people as if there are possible partners in a cooperative way if you think it's unfriendly and you see everyone who's your adversary and the whole world is hostile then you're going to you're going to behave that way and everyone is going to be very hot so and we're going to end up with nuclear weapons blowing each other up so he thought the future of the human race depended on us answering that question of even in times of adversity if you can say hey someone's got my back you know the life has my you do realize you do realize you've ruined every plot of every science fiction film because you know all aliens who come here or bad right that's that's so I guess it's the same thing here which is - it's a I mean I your book is about the confidence I guess right - the confidence to look at a another party and say no no you come with good intentions you're not coming to hurt me or screaming or hurt you know get you know make sure I lose right but the it's this is the getting to yes inside yourself right you know which is I'm okay right and I have the confidence to be okay with whatever whatever they are about to start with I see them as good I'll give you an example and you know I said working I've been working in Colombia for example for last three or four years the president his advisors in the you know how descend a 50-year war which is the last war in this hemisphere last remaining war is going on it's got 200,000 dead more than that seven million victims and and we started off there hadn't been any conversation between the guerrillas and the government over ten years the last failed negotiator and the question was how do you get the secret peace talks going well during that course of it because they had they happen secretly at first to arrive at some kind of preliminary agreement before it could be brought to the public because of spoilers would get to work on it so a colleague of ours whose name is Jaime he was tasked with running a private helicopter flying out in the middle of jungle and picking up a guerrilla commander to extract them from the jungle to bring them to Ivana to start talks with so Jaime Renza helicopter whatever the Red Cross gets in they don't even know the coordinates because no one just to know where the headquarters because otherwise the military would attack it anyway they coordinates are given to helicopter pilot they fly about 20 minutes into the forest they land in the middle of a jungle clearing no one there and then suddenly slowly emerging come hundreds of ak-47 carrying you know insurgency guerrillas all aimed at the helicopter put yourself in the shoes of Jaime the world looks very unfriendly at that moment right he had the presence of mind to decide wait a minute what am i doing in this helicopter and very uncomfortable helicopter the helicopters not going to stop the bullets with her I might as well get out of the helicopter so he opens the door helicopter gets out strides up to the person that he recognizes as the commander and says senor come on Dante I am now placing you under the personal protection of the president in other words he reframed that's one of the great powers of negotiation he was able to reframe that situation yeah come on Dante looked a little startled but he kind of got the point and you know because some of the guerrillas were saying hey this is a trick you don't do it you know you're never going to come back you know whatever but he sort of swallowed you talk about courage you got his courage whatever it was and he got into another copper and they flew off and the peace talks began I asked Jaime what how could you do that how did you how did you have that presence of mind what gave it to you it wasn't he had done some internal work already inside himself where he you know basically he had this faith somehow that things would work out he had he had a belief that life somehow was on his side and because of that he was able to see the comic commander as his partner rather than as his enemy which then changed the situation and so there's so much it's amorphous in a negotiation if you can bring you the power of what what context you what interpretation you put on it and you can slowly sometimes shift the situation in a dramatic way like Jaime did I know for myself that that's a hard thing to do yeah and it's not just a switch I can't just be you know it and so are there some are there some exercises some daily exercises or is how does one practice getting to the point of getting to yes with oneself thank you I mean is it literally just like you find is it just is it force I mean what can one do to to get there I mean how do I get there yeah well the you know first of all recognizing it's not always so easy it's this is a lifelong practice it's like any sport you know I guess I can sort you know you don't you know be cover like a you know champion in a moment but you know you if you you could work at it every day and we have the chance every day to work at it but I think it starts with the ability to I use the metaphor going to the balcony you know it's kind of the ability to kind of start to invoke your inner scientists and observe what's going on it's almost like you see what's going on in the negotiation on the stage and part of your mind goes to a mental and emotional balcony overlooking that stage where you can you can kind of keep your eyes on the prize you can see what's going on a little bit of detachment to observe so that you can then start to keep your eyes on the prize and ask yourself the question what do I what's my why here you know what do I really want out of the situation what's what's my intention and if you can start to do that and you know even like as a simple practice like for example every day what I'd like to do sometimes is for I'm going to go into an import a difficult negotiation or even have a phone call just take a few moments you know minute even of just quiet for a moment listen to yourself watch yourself go to the balcony for a second and you know set your intention and then that helps and then if you get caught and carried away in the thing take a break take a timeout and just realize it doesn't all have to be done at once and then have a moment after the interaction to take a moment for yourself and ask you know what did I learn here what would I do differently next time and then through the art of continuous improvement gradually you can get better and better you train yourself to do that you're asking us to do something very difficult in this in this you know information intense metric everything instantaneous gratification world you're asking us to be patient right well even without samples what you know the motto is absolutely start by finishing yourself pretty sure no that's it that really is it because the thing is the motto negotiation is if you want to go fast and all the pressure on these they is to go fast and fast if you want to go fast you have to go slow because human minds don't change in a second and so if you can slow down to where that human mind is then you have a chance to bring them much faster if you go really fast there's a resistance they you know they shut down and then it's going to take a lot longer so it's I mean to some degree this is it flies in the face of sort of the way a lot of our modern days fold out that decisions have to be made now and right negotiation has to be completed down I need your decision by the end of the day and right it's it seems to fly in the face of how the world is working well yeah but it's kind of like you know like there's the slow food movement ya know you were just a little yeah you know slow food movements active their API ate and it made me slow but but just you know the thing is that this is the paradox is that if you want to go fast you have it's almost like you know like tennis players would you know they slow down the motion that's how they are so good because they're on the balcony they're in the zone you know it's in tennis it's called the zone they're in the zone they're in that place of presence and power and satisfaction and the same thing as in negotiation you know we've got high-stakes situations you want to be in that zone and and what what my book suggests is it kind of some simple you know almost like common sense but uncommon sense methods and for training yourself to be in the zone so the ear at your highest state of peak performance when it comes to dealing in the tough situations we have to deal with every day even in this conversation I'm learning especially this conversation I need every time I get to sit down with you I walk away a little smarter the so the person introduced us round brooder right run has been a great mentor to me for a few years and I've learned a few things that I put together a call to the brooder principles that I use whenever I'm doing business deals because it keeps me out of trouble and one of the brooder principles is is slow the deal down so whenever I'm with someone who's putting pressure on me to do a deal you know have you read the contract yet I'll get back to you next week you know and if they're and what I learned was when when I slow the process down there desire to keep it really intense there's probably trouble you know because healthy parties are okay if it takes a little longer like we'll get the deal done you know yeah it's dragging on you know you make fun of it but there's somebody with it with a that has too much intensity there's usually something wrong you know there's a little too much desperation and it reveals itself instantaneously as soon as I slow the deal down just slow the whole process down and so this is what I'm learning that the fascinating thing is is to do that with myself because I'm sometimes too quick and making decisions and and and simply by slowing the process down I could probably review a lot of things to myself even about myself it's this it's very similar it's this really fascinating that's it but that's see that's slowing the flying the deal now and slowing the deal down means taking some time on the balcony to bait to say wait a minute is this really in my interest and you're absolutely right that it also is a way of sniffing out whether this is really a partner for you is the partner because because the thing is you're going to do the deal but the deal is only the beginning of the relationship right and if already during the deal they're putting all this pressure on you and they're not taking to account your interests and your needs then what kind of relationship was that interesting yeah and so so it serves you to do that and you know one example that comes to mind is uh I never told you this story but about a year and a half ago I was called in I wasn't asked in by the wife and daughter of a very prominent and highly successful businessman in Brazil who was in meshed in a terrible terrible conflict where he and his father had started this supermarket chain which you know from just a little bakery into a supermarket chain that became brazil's largest retailer and he had a french partner and they were having a battle over who was in control of the company and can see it's sold you know i brought in the french partner and so on and the partnership had really turned sour and for two and a half years they'd been it locked in legal battles arbitration lawsuits character assassination that no in the press I mean it was awful and it was it was ruining his life and he was already like 76 at the time and he was supposed to be eight more years as chairman of this company it was just a battle and it was affecting him his their families the 150,000 employees of the company it was even straining commercial relations between France and Brazil and so I went I saw him I met him in his home and so you know I listened to his story and because I was thinking well what do I have anything here to how can I help and then it just dawned on me that maybe the real problem wasn't just with the adversary the real problem is always within ourselves so I asked him I said Emilio's his name and became a friend and he said I said you know I hear the story I said but what do you want what do you really want you know I was trying to get it your why in some sense and he said well yeah I want the stock at a certain price that I wanna elimination of non-compete clause and I want some real estate he gave me like six or seven things and I listened to and I thought wait am i this guy's got everything I mean he's you know extremely wealthy he had a new family I mean you know you got everything you got everything you want in your life what do you really want I mean this is just money you know but what do you really want and I probe for a while because he was kind of uncertain did he want to fight you know because he's got a fighting type too and he finally said you know what I want though I want freedom I want my freedom and that was his heart speaking that was a human being speaking and then as soon as I heard that I said okay I believe I think I can help you but I'm gonna work to achieve your freedom it's not about you know whatever I could resonate with that I said what's the freedom for and he said well I want to spend tot freedom spend time with my family my little kids I want freedom to pursue my business dreams you know I said okay you know we can do that and then I asked him the question so lobelia so who can give you that freedom is it really your arch enemy is that the person who can give you the freedom or in the end is it only you can give yourself that freedom and he kind of like got it you know in other words he realized he could he could give himself that freedom and in fact he was doing that he was uh he became so even though why that conflict was going on he moved his office outside of that company headquarters so he could have his own independent pursue his own deals began the chairman of another company he went on a nice vacation with his family and once he became a little bit less dependent on this you know less enmeshed in this conflict then we had more room and like in from the time I met the the counterpart my colleague David Lux and I met the counterpart in Paris in in Paris we met amount of Monday by Friday we had both men in a law of anything signing an agreement making a press conference and the thing is they were treating each other it was not based on two principles freedom and dignity and they were both the thing is it wasn't just a kind of a split there is compromising you know colitis they both were really highly satisfied and Emilio said you know what most important thing is I got my life back let me I got my freedom it's it's I mean it's the sort of the pejorative title of the book is sort of not being the victim anymore right it's you know it's this mind shift of going from this person is hurting me or this person is responsible for my happiness or preventing me from being happy or getting whatever I want and rather it sounds like accountability that's it that's it that's it hard that is that's so much easier to just play him so maybe maybe you know psychologically one more seven fighters but the more effective way you really want to get the things you want in life what are truly what you want to get your own freedom here if you want to get what's truly important in life this is like it's like coming away it's like I'm not easy it's like coming to you simple but not easy right it's like coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that the only common factor in all my failed relationships is me ya know exactly the first time second by third I'd like to blame always it's always there it's here and I mean that's the thing I because my life passion is you know helping people get to yes and I realize wait a minute there is a missing piece it's almost like we've been negotiating our lives with one arm tied behind our back clear just been focused on the outer you know on the other side and what on how we influence the other side and we we forgot about how do we influence ourselves and if we can influence ourselves then we can influence the other side I mean the other thing is if we influence ourselves we can give ourselves a kind of degree of satisfaction that whether or not we reach agree with the other side in some sense it doesn't even matter secondary it starts with inner satisfaction it moves to outer satisfaction and moves back to inner satisfaction because we're always focused on when we blame the other side we're also looking to them to satisfy us I mean as human beings we can't we can't we can't help ourselves I mean we're always making comparisons you know for example there's a wonderful study that was done where they offered someone a $400,000 house on a block where all the other houses are a hundred thousand dollars or write a free million dollar house on a block or all the other houses of four million dollars and more people chose the four hundred thousand dollar house right like we can't help ourselves you know the way we we judge our status in the hierarchy right we're constantly comparing and denying ourselves something better so that we can feel like we've won yeah versus someone else right as opposed to waking up in the morning be like I have a million dollar house that I just got for free right I mean I see this play out here sometimes in much smaller circumstances you know I go to events and they give out you know you've done this they give out goodie bags at the end right you know you get the schwag bag as you walk out and it's got all of the marketing nonsense in some nice bag and you see this all the time you know you take out the free you know t-shirt you got you got red t-shirt he is I want the blue one what ah and I'm all disappointed right at my terrible schwag bag of free stuff right cuz I want the blue t-shirt not the red way they're all red I'd be totally happy that's it but because there's a blue one but I see I mean I'm furious don't feel slighted that's that's exactly it is that you know you know because we're getting yes the whole idea is to move from kind of a win-lose ya know mindset to a win-win mindset but and we always think well the obstacle to that is the other side but actually obstacles exactly what you're talking about that it's that part in us that windows mindset that scarcity mindset says there's not enough to go around and the only way I'm going to judge whether I want is if you lost and we don't deal with that inside of ourselves no wonder we're not able to produce getting DSM and epic what point in your own life and or a career yeah did you is clearly like anything it's like going to the gym which is you never see yourself getting stronger and you wake up one day and you look in the mirror or you realize I'm I'm stronger it's like falling in love you don't know when it happens you just sort of you wake up and you realize you're in love at what point in your own life or career did you realize or were you able to find more satisfaction and actually be happier because you realize that you've done through this transition you know we you born this way you always like this I would like do you remember when you started to just be grateful for what you had you know it just made you a happier person yeah can you you know it's you know it's a good point I think it's something that that that happened over time and that uh you know how far back like how long have you been okay with you know yourself and what you've got like five or ten years but you know yeah well know about the fervor I mean I started I started being dissatisfied with myself and asking myself these questions when I was a teenager okay a lot you know a lot of you know in teenager self consciousness or whatever and and I started looking at books of philosophy and wisdom like that you know what's the baby doing outside again yeah but no I but I did things like I you know what out the woods offensive talk about the woods and looking at these guys know what I yeah without the mountains but but I think for me actually you know but then I hit a kind of plateau and then I think a lot of it was when when Gaby was born I went through that whole thing is my I think my brother died at that time my mother died it was a kind of like it's a little bit of a dark period in my life and I was bigoted and at the same time I was looking in my practice but but I think because a lot of it has to do is you just pointed out with self-acceptance I mean that may be the greatest gift you can give yourself is to kind of quiet see if you can quiet that that we all have this voice is kind of inner critic it's always criticizing and doubting you know psychologists say that we have I don't know like 60,000 thoughts a day maybe up to and and the great majority of them are negative you know if you actually sat down and counted all the negative thoughts but the ability to you know kind of like wait a minute start to accept yourself and if you can accept yourself you're much more likely to be able to accept others if you respect yourself you're much more likely to be a prayer respect others so that's again what so that so I'd say maybe about you know 16 15 16 years ago I you know from that plateau I began to kind of look more and I could see it in my practice as a negotiator as a mediator like in I was getting into tough situations like I think I may have told you that like I was involved example in Venezuela where I was dealing with President Hugo Chavez for example and I remember you know you often in tough situations where like remember having one meeting with him like at midnight and thinking I was gonna find him alone he's had his whole cabinet arrayed behind him and he he said so you're a so what do you think of the situation and I said well mr. president I've been talking to your ministers I've been talking the opposition seems to me making some progress what do you mean making progress he said you know he leaned in very close to my face and started to yell at me here naive you're foolish you're not seeing the dirty tricks in like and he just full-on yelling for like 30 minutes and I'm thinking wow okay all this work the last two years down the drain but because of this work I was able to kind of like go to the balcony for a moment say wait a minute because I felt like defending myself and you know fine I said wait a minute is that really going to advance my goal here if I get into an argument with the president of Venezuela because I I started to do this work I was able to kind of like you know bite my tongue take note okay just focus of the balcony watch what's going on I could see myself getting a little embarrassed and you know feeling the anxiety just letting it relax and just listen to him and just listen them in and so he could yell and yell pretty soon he started to rub a little bit of Steve because there was no look everybody's looking for a fight it was looking for a fight he wasn't getting the fight so after a half an hour I finally saw his shoulder sag a little bit and I kind of weary tone of voice he said to me so Yuri what should I do amazing and then his mind began to open and I said well mr. president maybe the whole country needs to comes back so so 2050 so what two two thoughts come to mind in that in that case yeah you accidentally created or scenario was created created in which you which someone eventually got to yes inside themselves because they ran out of stuff to say or they ran out of energy or they right they weren't getting the you know because when you get the fight you sure it's no problem just keep attacking each other but it sounds like for a split second there for a moment that he actually got to us with himself which made him open minded right but the situation I guess exhaustion right and a lot of things happen because of exhaustion you know right that's warring parties gets to this now we're willing to talk this sure we've spent so much money on lawyers now we're willing to negotiate his mind open forget that interesting and because you know because I mean it goes back to your point about you know giving courage you know because I had listened to him he was more willing to listen to me all of a sudden and so the question is how do you break that cycle of I'm not gonna listen to you you're not gonna listen to me I'm going to reject everything you say you're gonna reject everything I'm going to blame you you're going to blame me which is the basic structure of conflict how do we turn that around how do we break that cycle someone has to do it first and to do it first they have to draw that strength from somewhere it's got to come from inside and it's getting to that mindset without having to go through the exhaustion without having to spend all the money on the attorneys first without having to write hate everything in cut of your nose to spite your face first right yeah that's right the other question I had is you tell the story of how you were able to yourself find this way and this fifteen or sixteen years ago with this annus horribilis you know this horrible year you had does one have to go you know if they don't read some of the tips and lessons you've learned did that does that does it require going to a dark place to make these conclusions can one can one come to these realizations without the darkness I think so I mean the thing is you know there's a tendency in human nature to if you've got an easy way to learn and a hard way to learn you know we often opt for the hard way but not know is depressing no perfect I believe it I believe it I think is I you know I did I went to it you know it was it was a it wasn't like a hugely dark place but it was like a hard year it was a hard year but I think we all life whether we like it or not gives us shocks at different times and take advantage of those shocks take advantage of those those moments I think about that year as a year of kind of blessed shock you know because it kind of woke me up a little bit and we all have those things you know do we actually listen to them or not but I think you know you don't need you you know there's a kind of continual improvement because the thing is it's not just it's not just because of something bad happening there's so much good that can happen as you find that wait a minute there's more spaciousness in my life there's more satisfaction in my life I you know I have a friend who's that heads up a major NGO you know working on violence gang violence and he said you know he'd been doing this work a little bit of work of kind of putting himself in his shoes you know and doing this kind of inner work and he said he found out that Wow suddenly everyone around the office he started to be a nicer guy they said wait a minute what happened what happened to him but up into Gary you know because everyone and everyone the whole office became a lot nicer place to work why because it started with him as leader kind of realizing you know because before that he was kind of like toughen is wondering why isn't everyone so nice whatever but actually was he once he started to do that incremental work inside himself he noticed that over six months a year and now he says the place is a pleasure to work with why it's a reflection of the work he did inside himself and it goes back to the leaders it's not the charismatic you know kind of leader in this era is the best one it's the one who's willing to be accountable to make some of that hard work they may look you know they're not so flashy yeah but they've done they have that you know they're what Jim Collins calls you know level five verses of humility their humility the able to learn that opens them up and then that that's infectious to the rest of the organization inspiring totally inspiring good luck I have lots of people read it good stuff well I hope it really I mean it's it's it's very congruent with your work and I really I really hope there's enough work coming into the culture like this that inspires people to kind of think boldly think more generously about and think in a new way about leadership and negotiation well I think it's what we all do which is that none of us you know it's a jigsaw puzzle right and each of us shows up with a piece of the puzzle by by itself is it's kind of it might be colorful and share a nice shade but it it's pretty useless right you know and it's it's when we find all the different pieces and put them together that that all changes yeah that's it it's also kind of saying the same things or congruent things but in different language the different audiences is it starts to become a critical mass yeah good stuff it's great well I hope thanks Bill you're very welcome Simon so it's a pleasure to talk with you I find your work very inspiring so it's like may it inspire the world amen to that great thanks

Channel: William Ury

Views: 104,636

Rating: 4.8432121 out of 5

Keywords: Simon Sinek (Author), Talking, Simon Sinek, William Ury, Bill Ury, Getting to Yes, Getting to Yes with Yourself, negotiations, negotiating, Decision-making (Award-Winning Work), decision making, cooperation, Conflict Resolution (Field Of Study), conflict resolution, TED, TEDx, TEDx Talk, TED Talk, Leaders Eat Last, Start with Why

Id: dqV6pjX_dP0

Length: 39min 7sec (2347 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 05 2015