The Infinite Game: Chapters 1 & 2 | Book Club with Simon

hello everyone and welcome back to book club lots of people showing up from all over the world from the UAE Costa Rica Denmark Brazil Greece Arizona Ohio Vail Lebanon I just love Pittsburgh we go from Lebanon to exotic Pittsburgh I love it Texas I just love how many people join Spain hello its I love how it's becoming a global thing for all of us thanks for coming back we tried to adjust the time so that even more people could join in how to stay up too late so thank you for being here India also as many of you may know we started book club near the beginning of kovat because we were all physically separated and I wanted to do something where we could maintain our social bonds and the whole idea was not necessarily about reading a book but finding an excuse to get on the phone with people to get on zoom' with people and to talk and talk about something that's not the news or kovat or something like that and that's why we started book club it was about us doing things together so thank you for forming your book clubs and and being a part of it a few changes this time we're now on three platforms YouTube LinkedIn and Facebook also new we started a book club Facebook group and so all book club discussion and you can watch it there and all that good stuff so if you want to join that meet other people in the book club again this is about doing things together you can go do that I had such an amazing time we weren't planning on doing more book clubs to be honest we were gonna do start with why because I had to reread the book and I figured invite other people to read it with me but I'll be honest with you I had so much fun and after each one I was so inspired that we decided to do it again and instead of doing the books in order we decided to read the infinite game mostly because I think that the message of the infinite game and the lessons in the infinite game are so valuable and valid to everything that's going on in the world the black lives matter movement Cove it'd just just the fact that we've become more connected as a planet I think because we're all going through many similar things I thought the mentality of the infinite game was really important to discuss can't believe it's July already it feels like we started the last book club in April if you can believe it what else I have my notes here I think that's everything for future book clubs if you want to send questions you can always send them to book club at simon Sinek comm obviously we're also gonna do live questions here okay well let's get going so let me give you a little history of this book so it's based on the philosophy of by a philosopher named James cars' somebody gave me his book many many years ago called finite infinite games and it's this wonderful little kooky little book it's this treatise about these two these two types of games and it really challenged my way of thinking that we are these players and infinite games and I realized so much of what we learn in leadership even just how to manage our own careers we're getting bad advice everything's about winning and being number one and I realize that's not what life is life is not about a finish line life is of a journey life is not about just a series of destinations life is this ongoing thing and I think one of the reasons that I discovered that one of the reasons I think we mess up leadership a little bit and sometimes create more complication in our lives is simply because of our mindset and so I be I was using dr. Carson's work and a lot of the other work that I was doing and at some point realized I wanted to write more about how do we actually learn an infinite mindset and that's what the infinite game is all about I'll tell you a quick little story because I had the opportunity to meet dr. Carr's recently he's 87 years old he's amazing he's sprightly he's funny he's engaging and I asked him of course I had to ask him how did you come up with the infinite game and he was explained to me that in the 1970s game theory was all the rage all everybody was talking about it and a lot of these mastermind groups were formed to discuss game theory if any of you have ever heard of the prisoner's dilemma that came out of one of these masks many groups in the 1970s and so it was like philosophers and mathematicians and economists who would join up and talk about these things and dr. cars was invited and he was astonished that all they were doing is talking about winning and losing winning and losing and so he raised his hand and said what about playing because even the prisoner's dilemma is about being the winner and so he got this idea stuck in his head about what about the play and he went home and he started to notice patterns and he saw his kids when they would play ping-pong he had three sons when they would play ping-pong there was always fighting there was always paddles being slammed down if somebody lost there was always accusations of somebody cheating and it was always sort of a bit aggressive but when his kids were doing something creative like Lego or drawing it was quiet people would come and go throughout the day and it would just go on and on and on and he started to recognize the value of play rather than the value of just attempting to win and recognized that this idea of playing is actually more important than anything else what I call an infinite mindset he calls play and so when you start a business or go through your career or go through your life it's about the ply it's about the joy of the game that we come and go and sometimes things go well and sometimes they don't we can have finite objectives but it's this ongoing sort of thing and so it was so wonderful to learn the origin story I thought what I would do before I start answering questions first of all a couple little shout outs my folks are on here I have to say hi to them my mom my dad I also have to say hello to the Dakota potato peel pie and literary society you guys have been freaking loyal from the get-go so thanks for being here tell you a couple little things I marked some chapters and please post your questions in the chat and I can get to some of those so it was fun to reread the book obviously it's not been as all along as start with Y but it was fun to reread there's a couple things that really stood out me that really struck me that I really appreciate it and it reminded me of sort of how to even approach my own career and there was one one phrase here what on page 19 that says a finite minded leader uses the company's performance to demonstrate the value of their own career an infinite mindedly an infinite minded leader uses their career to enhance the long-term value of the company and I love this I really love this idea of using performance of our company to show how good we are versus showing up every day to help to help the company be better which means help the customer get something more help our employees go our colleagues go home feeling more fulfilled that it's the ideas showing up with a giving mentality versus a taking mentality and that just really struck me the number of fancy CEOs who tell you how great they were because of how their company performed like their company as a standard they use to prove to prove their worth more specifically and I'm happy to discuss this further if you like I was really struck by some of the the explanations of what it just causes especially the social movement that's going on now with black lives matter and the social movement that is growing on how it's how it can grow how it can succeed and be and really take hold and be sticky and I wrote about how a Just Cause must be these five things it's it's like a test it has to be for something it has to be optimistic and affirmative it's about where we're going not where we're coming from it has to be inclusive open to all those who would like to contribute so the question is is how do we make an invitation there can be different opinions on how we can advance a cause and the whole point is to get different opinions because though we can differ on how we think it works the point is we all want is we want to get as many people as possible focused in the same direction I think a great example is politics I'll use America just because I live here one of the things that I think we forget is the difference between the political parties should be the intention is that we on the founding principles of the nation that all people are created equal endowed with unalienable rights amongst which include life liberty and the pursuit of happiness the question is how are we going to get there and the political parties have different opinions about how we provide these unalienable rights to all people that's the discussion and that's why the parties go in and out of power depending on the time because politics change and opinions change and cultures change and perspectives change and so we may favor one strategy over another depending on the time but the real debate should be about how we get there not about where we're going and I think where politics becomes destructive is where we start debating what the whole point is that was established for us already that's the foundation of the nation the debate is simply how do we get there it has to be inclusive that all people in all parties have a say service-oriented we've talked about this one that the primary benefit has to be others yes we can reap benefit from our own careers we can make a good living we can we can have our ideas spread that's fine we can be received notoriety for ideas these things are fine but the primary the objective word is the operative word here is primary must be for the good of others service a service mentality we are social animals were tribal animals and this is how we build community we trust each other when we trust that the people in our community actually are thinking about us and caring about us this is why service orientation really matters it builds trust if we have a selfish orientation we put ourselves at the center of the equation we destroy trust resilience it has to be able to endure and it has to be idealistic and I think this is a very important thing right now which is these ideals that we have will never be perfect we will never get it right but the whole point of any social movement or any national experiment or any nation or any career or any life is that we're advancing further and further down a path knowing full well that we'll never get to the ideal state that we hope to one day I really love this idea big and idealistic and unachievable I think that's important and to recognize that progress gets made fast and slow and sometimes there are steps back but the point is to continuously point Ford's this is what inspires us this is what motivates us to show up every day ok that's my little preamble who's just I really enjoyed reading this I have to say it was really fun to read it again especially given the context of the world we're living in now to read about the Just Cause reminded me and it was as relevant now as it was when I wrote it let's do some questions ok first question from the International book club Julia and Sonya can a person have an infinite mindset in their private life though act finite minded in their business life if so could the main drivers to act with different mindsets in different environments ok you can have infinite mindset and a finite mind said everywhere the the the important thing is not to create to create them as in opposition they're not on opposite sides of a seesaw it's not you have an infinite mindset and I have a finite mind said that's not quite how it is it's that the finally the infinite mindset is the context within which the finite mind the finite things can exist it's not the absence of finite it's the it's the the purpose for those finite things so for example it is a false belief that an infinite mindset is simply set a series of finite games win this game win the next game win the next game win the next game win the next game a that's tiring and be you never find fulfilment and you always feel like you're playing an aggressive game in politics or business if all it is is about get the next bonus get the next bonus get the next bonus it's just it just it just doesn't work and you accidentally weaken the organization so the and I think I'd wrote about this the analogy we have to think about is health a lifestyle right so it's about what does it take to be healthy you have to sleep you have to eat well you have to exercise you have to maintain your personal relationships probably a list of 30 or 40 other things you can never do we can never do all of these things you know at a high level all the time it just doesn't work that way it's too difficult and so we're we're trying to do it we're constantly trying to live a healthy life you can absolutely we can absolutely have finite goals within that I want to lose X amount of weight by X date right totally fine same in business we want to hit that goal that number by that date totally fine and if you hit that goal you're excited and you're happy but here's the challenge you have to keep working out for the rest of your life the game hasn't ended same in business you hit the goal then what you have to do it again because there's no finish line and what happens if you miss the goal nothing nothing happens like you're still healthier now than you were when you started exercising and you if you keep on the path you'll hit your goal in another month or two same in business and so yes of course you can have finite objectives in business just like you're gonna find out objectives in your own life but the question is what is this finite objective advancing and so I I'm very uncomfortable with us creating this like I'm infinite in my personal life and finite in business because that that's I think this sort of work-life imbalance craziness which is the goals that I hit are to advance what that's the just cause that's what those find out objectives should be their way points along the way ok that was a long answer good question we're from Lauren McCormack ok related question from Lori McCormack have you applied the infinite mindset to other aspects of your life outside the workplace if so how has it benefited you the answer is yes the more I've learned about this I've tried to embrace the infinite mindset in all aspects of my life I've I try very hard not to distinguish between my work life and my home life it's me the reason my friends love me is the same reason my colleagues love me it's me and so an infinite mindset means I bring the same just cause to my personal life I just look for different ways to advance it so for example if my Just Cause is to create a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do in my work it's about the talks I gave the books I write the the classes that we offer on our website the t-shirts that we that we we offer as well all to help advance a particular mindset this is as much as a reminder to me as it is a message like I'm a walking billboard and in my personal life I do the exact same thing I want to make sure that my friends have a safe space to call me and say I'm struggling I'm having a hard time and it's happened with kovat and and black lives matter there's been a lot of uncomfortable difficult conversations where people sometimes maybe have felt really vulnerable but the point is is we called each other and we talked we didn't keep that information to ourselves and I think that infinite mindset really helped it also helps me manage difficulty things go badly things go wrong I have fights with friends sometimes I disagreements professionally things go sideways and I have to try and remember this as a point in the journey and the goal is to try and make decisions good decisions and difficult decisions and be cognizant of the the things I get wrong because I understand this journey is long and I'm still trying to get over there so absolutely I've tried to maintain an infinite mindset in my personal life and it has been really helpful it's helped me keep much more grounded and keep things in context Maria Mastro de casa did I get that right master de casa yeah Maria master de casa when you are playing the infinite game are you able to authentic enough be authentic enough to ask for help and guidance if so what would it look like to ask for help when you're in a position of leadership such a good question I think when we play with a finite mindset it's actually harder to ask for help because we position ourselves as winners or or and especially when you reach a position of leadership now we think we have to have all the answers we have to be right if you maintain this infinite mindset that it's a journey of Education and learning and that your that no matter what job you have every day you're learning to do that job if you're in customer service every day you're learning how to deal with customer service in a better way because you may have difficult people on the other end of a phone or across a counter and you're learning every day how to be talking to people as you reach a position of leadership every day you're trying to be a better leader and I think one of the the biggest things about being a great leader is having the courage to make difficult decisions but also the courage to ask for help it's essential that leaders have peer groups people they can call and say I'm struggling it's one of the most important things to me I have a group of friends it's informal people I love and care about and every now and then we will call each other and ask for help and here's the amazing thing that I learned that it only took one of us to do it first until the other one did it and so I had these friendships where we all sort of had all the answers we've all had our opinions and we all had our big egos and all of this stuff and their big personalities and I remember one time I called a good friend of mine and said I'm struggling I said I need your advice and from that point on he always calls me and says I'm struggling I need your advice and I think this is wonderful it only to be the leader we call you leader not because you're in charge we call you leader because you went first and so the willingness to be vulnerable in the willingness to ask for help is one of the factors that makes you a leader and creates an environment in which others will do the same great question Nina Myers hi Nina what is the best way to teach an infinite mindset to someone especially in a way that they won't get defensive I think if we're it's so the word teach is where I'm getting hung up on right I like the word share I like the word introduced I like the word invite and someone will get defensive not necessarily because what we're trying to share with them more likely people get defensive because of the manner in which we share it with them so for example if we think that they're two finite driven and we decide we want to teach them about infinite they're probably going to get defensive because they think we're attacking the way in which they do things and we might be and so what I'm a great believer in is talking about my experience which is I want to share something that has helped me a great deal it's called the infinite game and has profoundly changed the way I see the world and then I simply talked about what the theory is this is the great thing about dr. Carson's work the definition of finite infinite games you can explain in 30 seconds and people understand it and you can see people's wheels start turning and then I relate it to myself and I realized that when I was waking up every day to like beat the competition or be number one I realized this is why it was causing me so much stress and sometimes even hurting my relationships or or hurting innovation whatever it is and then since I've embraced this infinite mindset I realize how helpful it was anyway I just wanted to share how this has helped me and it's not an imposition so I have found that the way to get people to here is to not talk about them because that we don't know what how they're feeling or what what place they're and in their lives even though we're well-intentioned they may take it the wrong way and get defensive I find it's a great way to talk about me when introducing new ideas to people I think would appreciate them also I believe in talking to people who want to hear what I have to say people who ask me who do you talk to and I'm like whoever wants to listen if somebody's resistant I just move on remember I we talked about this in the in the start with why book club was I'm I'm a devotee to the law of diffusion of innovations and I really try not to waste too much breath with people on the right side of the law of diffusion because it's a hell of a lot of effort for very little gain and rather I want at least talk to people who are open they may not agree but they're at least open to an idea that's different to theirs so don't force anyone let's see Lisa Erickson as I think of myself in my career how can I have an infinite mindset when it feels like to be successful I need to focus on the finite mindset oh boy you nailed it how would you suggest adopting an infinite mindset for an individual contributor a role ok this is one of the challenges this is one of the reasons I wrote this book which is so many of us dare I say most of us are going to work in environments at companies that quite frankly they're only playing the finite game and all of the incentives all of the pressures all of the instructions we're getting are finite finite finite finite so what are we supposed to do will we be the leaders we wish we had and though we can't change the incentive structures of the organization and though we can't change the reward structures in how our our leaders may recognize us and tell us good work we can change how we show up everybody else and we can we can start to recontextualize our own work which is I'm going to use my job to learn how to be a better leader I'm going to learn to take care of the people around me and I'm going to talk about how their work benefits the people around them in other words you treat your team whether you're the leader or not whether you I should say this whether you're the authority or not because you can be the leader even if you're not the authority whether you have the authority or not you treat your little team as if you're the company and I've seen this happen where you have these wonderful teams that end up becoming much higher performing because the team trusts each other they care about each other to become more innovative a close minded company a very finite minded company usually just leaves that team alone because their numbers are good and if you have curiosity at the top they're interested in why retention is better Morales higher performance is better and they come over and say what are you doing and eventually one of those people will get either promoted or moved out of the group to another group and they take everything they've learned and so to show up with an infinite mindset means I'm gonna teach good leadership to the people I work with I'm gonna serve as an example because each of those people has the potential to be a leader somewhere else I'm gonna fill the organization with great leaders that in five years ten years fifteen years when the people who who have the authority now or have gone and left we will we will take over the infinite mindset is also about patience which is I'm doing this for a higher calling I'm doing this to have a positive impact and I may not be around to see the result that's the hard part about having an image of mindset think about in terms of a social movement all of the founders of the women's suffrage movement all of them were dead before women's suffrage was passed before we gave the vote to women right think about that for a second they devoted their lives to something that they never saw the result happened and yet they died proud because they could see and feel the momentum because of the people around them that they had inspired who they knew would carry the torch one they were gone that's what you do inside your organization find people that you can pass the torch on to Daniel rs.20 yes so he didn't he says he I don't mean to be Bohr morbid but how do you play with the infant mindset when the reality is we born we have a life we die we have a finite life we are finite players in the infinite game and that's the important thing to remember which is though our lives are finite life is infinite and we are part of Continuum's we we were born of parents and whether we have our own children we definitely will have lots of friends and relationships throughout our lives and we will have impact and so we have a choice remember there's three things we always consider you don't get to choose the rules of the game right life is an infinite game with us or without us born die life continues life doesn't care right it continues with us without us we can choose if we want to play in the game in this case you don't get a choice you're born you're in unlike business you can choose if you want to start a business or not but the third thing is we get to choose how we play the game and so yes you can absolutely play life the game of life with a finite mindset and the way that looks is I'm gonna be number one I'm gonna make every decision as to what what will pay me more which will get me more power which will get me more influence I remember talking to a guy who was it was a friend of was the husband of my a friend of my sisters and he was in a dark place in his career he just lost his job and he wanted my advice he wanted to help find that is why and I got on the phone with him we started talking and ice tried to find I started asking him questions about tell me a time in your career where you loved what you were doing he could not think of one he couldn't think of one project one instance one job he's ever had that he loved being a part of and I asked him how he chose his jobs in every single time he changed jobs he was because of the salary that was offered to him when he graduated college he took the first job that offered him the highest salary he had competing offers the second job he took the highest salary the third job he took the highest salary he only ever took jobs that paid him more and now he was unbelievably unhappy and had nothing to look back to had very few relationships had very few loyal relationships that he could call upon because he was always selfishly directed he had chosen to play with a finite mindset it's a choice it usually comes with a lot of health problems as well creates more stress and all the other health related things that come with stress or we can choose to play with an infinite mindset and what that means is we live our lives with the knowledge that we will die and we want to leave this world our company our families our friends in better shape than when we found them I think about that for a second that when when our friends and family go to our funeral they will stand and cry and talk about that they would not be the person they are today if it weren't for having you in their lives and so many people think about their legacies at the end of their lives when they face their own mortality that's the problem only when they face their mortality do they start thinking about legacy and giving and and giving to charity and giving it all away why not do that when you're 21 why not do that when you're 18 why not live your entire life thinking about your legacy meaning what impact will we have in the lives of others no one wants to be remembered for the amount of money they made no one wants on their tombstone the last balance in their bank account or the title on their business card we want to be remembered for the impact we have in the lives of others devoted mother loving father that's how you live an infinite life even though our lives are finite here's one from Todd Sidney Eric run and sherry with our society's focus on our law enforcement officers how do you see us reframing our thought process not to blame but to address complexity and create changes for resolution such a good question right now we're in a place of anger and anger has to come out think of it like having a fight with someone you love your spouse your boyfriend your girlfriend a friend right where you have a relationship it's sibling right you have a relationship where there's no getting out of this relationship and and because there has been very bad communication for so long that all of the slights and all of the little things that that noodled and needed us in these relationships it happens at work sometimes too we constantly somebody's always cutting us off in a meeting somebody's constantly interrupting us and eventually one day we just start we just lose it we slam my hand on the desk and say will you just stop interrupting me and there's a fight and there's anger and then all it takes is one person either party to listen and try to understand where the anger is coming from and then there's a dialogue and then both parties start listening and then you usually end up hugging and being grateful and though you don't want to go through that experience again you are grateful that it happened because it forced each party to listen and try to understand the position of the other and those friendships friendships and marriages that have have been able to navigate stress together and learn to listen and hear each other are way stronger as a result our society is going through the same thing we have to allow for the letting of the anger you cuts when somebody slams their foot their fists on the table the worst thing we can do is say that's not gonna help there's there's a process to this and and and what it takes now is for people to start to try and understand and either party it can come from either side you can come from law enforcement it can come from the african-american community come from the general community come from people who've been wronged people have it doesn't matter come from anywhere where somebody says I need to understand what you go through because we will not find a solution until we find common understanding and for one group to say well I'm not going first at their responsibility leadership is about the courage to go first it doesn't matter where the courage comes from one party just needs to go first one of the best examples I heard I did a podcast with Maria Shriver and first of all she's amazing but she was telling me a story of an african-american woman who is afraid of the police who's deathly afraid of the police and the way she addressed her fear was she invited a group of police officers to come into her home to have tea and to talk and even though she has been wronged and even though those in her community have been wronged and suffered as a result she was the leader she didn't want to talk she didn't want to tell them she wanted to listen this started an amazing dialogue of understanding this is what leadership looks like in times of stress great question and by the way this has to happen until we start hearing each other we live in a society especially because of social media everybody loves to talk social media is not a listening medium it's a talking medium it's about projecting and declaring and broadcasting we even call it broadcasting there's no mechanism to listen nobody's ever read a comment from somebody that posted on their feet and went mmm that's a good point I think I'll change my mind never in the history of the world has that ever happened we shout at each other we talk at each other dialogue requires us to sit down together in person or or over over it over a zoom I guess in this modern day and listen and try to talk try to listen I mean try to hear okay josh Josh Fitz how are you Shanna yes [Music] yeah so Josh was saying he has family who are in law enforcement and I can tell you right now that the morale in law enforcement as you could imagine is very very low and one of the challenges we're gonna have is the lower morale goes the more disconnected think about in our own jobs what do you do when your morale is really low you disconnect you don't feel like doing your work you show up and you do the minimum and that won't help and so what teaching an infinite mindset to law enforcement I mean I think I've had some conversations with law enforcement and one of the best things we can do first is have empathy hey man how are you how you doing right it's not a question of right or wrong it's not qualitative it's not judgment it's simply human but there's a human being here we're just saying how are you just as we would expect the opposite how are you if you have african-american friends how you doing same thing and what that does is it allows for a safe space it allows her a safe space to some to allow someone to express themselves rather than defend themselves because if we show up with anger we showed with attack guess what they're gonna dig in their heels they're gonna put up a barrier and they're gonna defend even if they disagree with their own defense why because they feel attacked and so what we want to do is create that safe space teaching the infinite Minds bed is about infinite mindset is about creating that safe space that simply allows them to to say whatever they want to say and we here without judgment we don't have to agree with it we're just creating a space and then when that vulnerability comes out and and I've had these conversations then what ends up happening is these people in law enforcement say we have a lot to do in our profession we have to change things we have to do things differently and they'll start to tell you the things that can be done and they start to become allies and helpful because they know what levers work and how the culture works a lot better than the outsiders we're creating allies and the REA you create allies is just making people feel heard we don't have to agree or disagree it's just about creating a safe space to feel heard so yes that infinite mindset will definitely help with your family that's in law enforcement okay Rodney Kurihara how do you play the infinite game when your company the executive leadership is firmly entrenched in the finite game hypothetically speaking there Rodney also is their use for finite leaders okay so first of all let's call them finite minded right because it's their mindset no one is born this way right and it's kind of a little bit like the question we had before which is unfortunately our society glorifies the finite mindedness we glorify the people who cut costs and and demonstrate the bottom line is great at the expense at the great expense of people or the longevity of the company the average lifespan of a company in the 1950s was about 60 something years the average lifespan now is about 18 years I mean that's crazy in other words we have done damage to our own companies because the finite mindedness and so it goes back to the answer I gave before which is we cannot change the minds of people who are who are more senior than us you know if your CEO is three or four levels above what are you gonna do you can't change other people no number of anonymously sent books will change their mind please keep trying but it won't work and so all we can do is take responsibility for ourselves the only thing that we can actually change is ourselves we can't even change our own circumstances we can only change our reaction to the circumstances around us and I'll go back to the answer I gave some moments ago be the leader you wish you had don't worry about the bus that's finite minded worry about the team that you can learn to be the great infinite minded leader and that you can impart that same education on your team and create more leaders one of the primary jobs of a leader is to make more leaders and so look to the left and look to the right and say these people these are the ones that could be the future leaders I'm gonna be a part of the solution these the people that will eventually replace that person who I know is gonna retire get fired or die who's gonna replace them let's build the bench now all the low-level and middle management folks now will eventually be the senior leaders let's build our bench be a part of building the bench like that women's suffrage movement the bench even if you aren't there to see it happen it's about momentum and the second question you ask is is there a use for finite minded leaders of course these are not good or bad it's it's it's that finite minded leaders have value as long as they understand the context in which they're operating like I'm I'm so head in the clouds that if you left me to my own devices nothing would ever get done you know and so I need people around me who are much more process driven and operationally driven and sometimes the frustration we have with each other is I'm all head in the clouds and they're like Simon I just need you to focus here and I think that they're being so focused that they can't see the forest for the trees my job is to help them see the forest for their trees their job is to try to see the forest for the trees so they understand the context within which all those finite choices are being made the biggest mistake we make is when we take that find it minded personality and we put them in a job that has to be infinite minded and they are unwilling or cannot adapt it's not it's not a fed a complete that just because you were in a finite mind a job an Operations job and you're now in a in a visionary job people that can adapt but it's hard if you're a senior leader if you're 50 years old and 60 years old and I'm gonna tell you now oh by the way everything that made you successful and get to this point by the way you have to abandon that and learn a completely new mindset because your job is different and it's really hard to do especially because they've been so successful with everything they've been doing but if you're an operator and you've been moved into a visionary job that's exactly what you have to do so do we have need for finite minded personalities of course as long as they're in partnership and understand that there's a greater context for the work that they're doing ok let's take a question from over here what do we have here what books Juan Gonzales how are you what books and themes do you have in the oven you know i i i i don't want to i don't do multi book deals because i don't want to be forced to write a book every book I've written I think is the last one to be honest with you I will only write a book if I think I have something shirring I I will tell you however I am very interested in human relationships these days I'm really interested in what makes this work and not work why we get along and why we don't get along we're tribal animals you've heard me say this before many of you have heard me say this before we have an entire section in the book shop called self-help we have no section on the bookshop called help others and I'm more interested in building the help others industry and contributing to the self-help industry you know our nation our society has over indexed on rugged individualism and defining things like money and and and and possessions as as definitions of success and yet the people who we admire and want to often be more like are those who are willing to sacrifice their interest for the good of others I I like to point out that the highest metal in our land the the Congressional Medal of Honor first of all this is I have so much respect for the military and how they how they give the Congressional Medal of Honor this is the highest medal in the land we don't give it to people who just had mission success in fact very often we give it to people who had mission failure but every time we give the Congressional Medal of Honor it's to recognize someone who is willing to sacrifice their own life whether they survived or not so that someone else may survive we consider that the the best thing a human being can do and then we never say they won the medal they say that they were awarded the middle and I love that subtle a tip of the hat to the infinite mindset that the medal was awarded it was not one it's an eye I just adore that and so when you ask me what books I have in the oven nothing specific but I if I if you forced me to take a bet it'll probably be something to do with human relationships okay so the Matt from Manchester as how do you start a small business with an infinite mindset example a small cafe okay so the Just Cause that you have and by the way you can have your own or you can find someone else's I think we put too much pressure on ourselves like especially young people because we're we're constantly asking what's your vision what's your vision entrepreneurs are constantly asked what's your vision we all have to come up with a vision too much pressure not everybody's visionary not everybody Steve Jobs only a small percentage of people have the ability to literally imagine a future that does not yet exist we don't all have to have a vision we do all have to find a vision that someone else could have articulated a vision that is incredibly inspiring to you and you can take that vision and make it your own this is what social movements are about but it doesn't have to be exclusive to social movements when Martin Luther King said I have a dream that dream became a lot of people's dreams he was just one to articulate it and help us see it and so whether you have your own vision of the future or you like someone else's my friend Bob Chapman when you ask him what does your company do he says we make great people to do extraordinary things he owns a manufacturing company it has nothing to do with manufacturing it has to do with the culture he's trying to build he says we measure success by how we touch the lives of the people we interact with right so if you're starting a cafe sometimes your product can actually advance the cause that's absolutely doable but maybe it's about being culture you want to build maybe you want to create an environment where you believe that every person has an opportunity and you want to give them opportunity so the question is is where you hiring from are you hiring maybe ex-convicts who are struggling to get their feet on the ground are you hiring people that can't get a break or maybe your vision is about creating a place in which people feel inspired safe and fulfilled in which case what culture will you build and how will you pass that on to your customers and your employees it doesn't necessarily have to be based on your product it can be B and what you'll find is the way you show up the way you advertise the way you decorate the cafe the way you talk to people Cafe Gratitude which is a place in California they're all about optimism and give it's sort of wonderful ooey-gooey hippie-dippie stuff and they're there the names of their stuff on their menu is like something's called beautiful something's called inspiring something's called passionate and the way that the the waitstaff brings you your stuff I remember the first time it happened I didn't really understand and they put down my tea and they said you were beautiful here you know and I was like whew they were telling me that I ordered a beautiful and here it was you know or here's your passion and I just loved that these little these little things was the food good the food was fine you know sometimes good at sometimes it was very average but the way that they showed up in their little cafe was made me keep going back because I just like going there anyway you get the point Sara and Nicola the raft girls are you RAF cause your Royal Air Force we're over the moon you're back well thank you very much I'm over the moon to be back we found our wise but how do we find a just cause okay I love that you found your why as you know from going through that process and if you've taken the jump start your Y class you know what it's like it's about going backwards learning your Y is about looking for patterns of behavior there is there are consistent patterns in all of our lives when we are at our natural best and it's about identifying those patterns so that we can be at our natural best more often the Y's about the past are just causes about the future so you say how do we find a just cause as I said before have you ever tried to put into words the world you imagined go for a long walk Sarah and Nicola go together and just talk about the world you want to live in just don't worry about writing it down you can record it if you want I guess but just talk about the world that you want to live in and what perfect would look like and try and come with specific examples like what would a specific example of work look like like talk about it specifically you know how would someone feel what would it look like what you're starting to articulate is vision right can you imagine it in your mind's eye can you see what other people cannot see or who are the people that inspire you who are the authors or the or the or the leaders the politicians or the CEOs like there are people out there who are who are speak with with with with with great clarity about the vision and if there's someone who stands out and goes ah mmm I love that I love that then make that cause your own make that cause your own it's it's finding doesn't have to be internal finding can be external but have the conversation a lot the way I was able to articulate my vision came from lots and lots of conversations and I would pick things up from other people I remember when I first met Bob Chapman as I talked about a moment ago we would talk and Bob would use words that I was like that's really good I like that and I sort of used them to inform my own vision and there were people that inspired me that I just I I put pieces together I put a jigsaw puzzle together until it formed a picture and I was able to describe the picture that I saw you can do the same doesn't have to happen immediately it's a journey yeah so a lot of people asking about the difference in a why again a Just Cause is sorry a why is objective and comes from the past it is an origin story it's where we come from a just cause is subjective it's about the future and where we're going but why comes from the past it informs our values it informs who we are everybody has a why it's our god-given right we're born with it and you have only one and it never changes your whole life your Just Cause is entirely up to you you can point your life in any direction you want you can have them even though you only have one why because it comes from the past and it's a build it's about building blocks you can have multiple just causes you can have one for church one for home one for a career one for work there's probably gonna be some overlap you can have one just cause that informs everything but one's about where we came from one's about where we're going think of it like a foundation of a house why is the foundation of the house it never changes it provides stability and solidity to the house now what's the house you imagine building that's your Just Cause and you can bend it and change it as you go but you have a basic sense of the shape of where you want to build it and if the house blows down because of some hurricane that comes you can easily rebuild because you have a strong foundation and it's still gonna say take the same basic shape and this time it'll be even stronger so sometimes stress and tragedy and and disaster can actually help make us stronger in ten we're going through kovat and black lives matter how does our society and our lives become stronger because of what we're going through we'll do a couple more questions I think what else I live from Switzerland Steph what do we have here [Music] Anthony Henny oh so a company has defined their just cause that's the world we imagine what's next well as I talked about in the infinite game it's a good question because we've only read chapters 1 & 2 so what comes next is the rest of the stuff well now we have to ensure that we're building trusting teams if you're the leader we have to study our worthy rivals so that we can continue to get better and better and better and better we have to prepare for existential flexibility hello kovat are we giving away all the money at the end of the year are we saving some of it just in case for a rainy day and we have to have the courage to lead which means is I'm gonna build my business differently than others even though everybody tells me I have to be finite minded like there's this fallacy we tell entrepreneurs which is they always say pay yourself first pay yourself first pay yourself first really is that what is that what the communication want to give to our people that I'll take care of myself before I take care of all of you mmm that doesn't mean you have to completely sacrifice everything of yourself to take care of others there's not martyrdom but it's about considering the lives of others sometimes before ourselves sometimes that we have to make the sacrifices as leaders in order for our people to feel that they matter this is really important feel right this is what listening is it's making someone feel heard and these are skills and then obviously to go back to the golden circle you can have the why in the inspiration you got to make sure you have the values and the and the and the process to help bring your Y to life and at the end of the day what you do all the tangible stuff has to that that has to be a straight line okay should we do one more but we've answered that one already hello the 60/40 Club Pam Dooley I think we answered your question oh I like this one how can we train ourselves to have mindset or do it or do a check if we currently act finite or infinite minded there's no such thing as a perfectly infinite minded leader there's no such thing as a perfectly into minded person there's no such thing as a perfectly in tune minded organization it is a striving it is an ideal and there are times that we have to be finite minded the question you have to ask is is this a finite situation or is this an infinite situation for example if you have a product that needs to get shipped if you're producing a podcast or you're doing something it has to get out it is finite there's a beginning middle and an end and then once it's done you might have something else to do but there's a beginning middle and end which means you play by finite rules to get it done but you have to concept of the infinite game think of it like a like a gate agent a gate crew at a at an airline it's finite there's a beginning middle and end we have to get that plane off on time and then it's done right but we don't want them screaming and yelling at customers just to get the plane off on time because that's a finite mind it's a finite mind set completely ignorant of the infinite mindset we want them to be aware of the infinite mindset which is you have to treat people right so that they will do business with us again because only if they do business with us again will our company survive and so this is when sometimes you get bureaucrats which is they hold up the rulebook and say you have to do this it's all a finite mindedness it's all fine but we have to have we have to have a concept of the of the infinite mind so can you train infinite mindset absolutely it's like I said before it's about talking about it talking about it talking about it sharing it talking about it embracing it living it yourself using it as a point of reference we do this in our company now we say hold on guys I think we're getting a little too finite here and in this case we have to be more infinite minded and we start to think not what we're doing right now but we start to think about the ripple effects if I do this what will happen how will that affect the people how will that affect the product how a lot and we start thinking all the ripples and sometimes we make mistakes and we pull back a little bit but we're starting to think of ripples now we we constantly are distinguishing between the two as we do one more I want to do one more let's do one more live question perspective is the key yes it is Oscar you know remember this is Victor Frankl stuff we cannot change the world around us oh we can changes our attitude towards it you know somebody asked me are you a glass half-full or a glass half empty kind of guy and I said I'm a glass I'm a glass totally full it's half full of milk and half full of air it's completely full most of the stuff in our world is about perspective you know I remember I showed up late to a meeting once and somebody said with a very condescending tone you know Simon the early bird gets the worm and I responded and the early worm gets eaten so you know perspective and I think perspective is so so important here because when you talk about who we are and good and bad it's all contextual so I've stopped thinking about our company or even myself in terms of strengths and weaknesses what I did right and what I did wrong it's all context and the story that I like to tell is I'm disorganized I'm very very disorganized and you know my mother used to make fun of me when I was little that if it wasn't attached I'd forget my head probably right and so you know as a young entrepreneur I'd started this company I was 28 years old and I would go to these networking events and I'd meet these people they'd go Simon we have to work with you I was a young consultant I was a little marketing consultant we have to work with you I took their business card and any organised entrepreneur would write down the card put it in a in their phone whatever it was and they would call the next day they would email the next day and say thanks so grace meeting you so great meeting you let's let's let's see if we can work together Yahoo over here in the span of getting the business card would lose the business card and then nothing would happen and I remember this one it happened more than once but I remember one like two weeks later I found a business card at the bottom of a bag you know covered in dust bunnies and I was like oh probably should drop this person a note two weeks after I met them and it turns out they wanted to work with even more because they thought I was busy so is it a strength or a weakness it depends it's the context it's the context and so perspective is everything everything requires context we don't have strengths and weaknesses it all depends on when we're doing it and where we're doing it so on that note on the note of perspective I want to thank everybody for coming today so much joy I have it what I really love and what's really inspiring for me is there's so much appetite for this infinite mindset there so much appetite for for us wanting to change this mindset and learn to recognize it in our world I think one of the things it's not just about embracing it in ourselves but learning to see it in others a lot of questions were about what if my boss what if my company is finite minded simply our ability to recognize who's playing with an infinite mindset who's playing with a finite mindset helps us navigate helps us be able to communicate to speak in their language to help advance the greater good right because we have to be translators rather than just simply a teachers so I think one of the best things about learning about these different perspectives these different mindset mindsets is actually learning them too is learning to see them in other places and learn where we want to navigate our infinite minded lives so thank you for joining okay we will be being that we will be back next Friday July 17th same time 1:00 p.m. Eastern for the next infinite game book club same places will be on YouTube Facebook and LinkedIn and we will be covering chapters 3 through 5 so bring your questions about chapter 3 through 5 and we'll talk all about them chapter 3 is caused no cause which picks up on the just cause on how often we get it wrong the keeper of the cause there's a responsibility of someone and a group of people to advance that cause and then finally I the responsibility of business and take on Milton Friedman himself so that's what we're gonna be doing next week will be a good one especially all the talk about the responsibility business if you want to send your questions in advance send them to book club at Simon Singh Kham if you want to rewatch anything here refer back to it or show it to a friend who missed it the recording will be available on YouTube Facebook and LinkedIn you can see it everywhere and if you want to dive in further into these concepts and learn to adopt an infinite mindset we've actually but my wonderful team has started to build coursework and actually how we can learn to do these things some people asked how do i how do i articulate my just cause so we have some courses that we're developing that we've developed to help you do that there are live classes I can't stress you know I'm a big thing about human interaction so there are live classes and because I love book club we have a 20% discount code for only four people in book club so if you use the discount code book club rules for the whole month of July you can get 20% off all the classes book club rules is the discount code for 20% off we have classes on how to advance a just cause how to build trusting teams and how to study your worthy rivals very excited about those we'll be adding more classes as we develop them thank you for joining thank you for reading with me remember book club is not about reading a book book club is about doing things with each other find one friend keep the group together it's about the discussions you have before our little weekly book club meetings so take care of yourself take care of each other and I look forward to seeing you next week

Channel: Simon Sinek

Views: 51,782

Rating: 4.9608226 out of 5

Keywords: Book Club, Simon, Sinek, Simon Sinek, Inspiration, The Infinite Game, Inspire, Motivation, Leadership, James Carse, Self-help, Personal development, Business, Teams

Id: gtKLlZKhFvY

Length: 58min 50sec (3530 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020