Simon Sinek: Why Leaders Eat Last

[Music] so the date is August 16th 2002 and flying over a valley in Afghanistan are two A10 warthogs an A10 is a heavily armored low flying slow aircraft designed to provide ground cover for troops on the ground and on this night it's a very very cloudy night the storms in the area and these two planes hanging up above just waiting in case anybody down below needs help up there it's gorgeous the Moon is is bright there's thousands of stars in the sky the clouds looked like the snow had just fallen down below in the valley

however there were 22 Special Forces Special Operations forces troops trying to make their way through the country and they could feel that something was wrong they could feel they felt uneasy one of the pilots up above call sign Johnny Bravo and yes he stands like this he could feel their unease listening to them over the radio so he decides he was going to go down below the cloud and just have a look he tells his wingman hang out up here I'll go see what there is and he points his plane down into the clouds and

as he's going through the clouds the call comes over the radio troops in contact troops in contact is what they say when they come under effective fire it means they're in trouble so now Johnny Bravo points his plane straight down the plan's getting thrashed about in the turbulence and when he comes out below the clouds he's less than 1,000 ft off the ground and he's flying in a valley Cliffs on both sides now this is only 2002 and the planes were not yet equipped with ground hugging radar and worse they were using old Russian maps

that's all they had at the time and the sight that greets him is something like he's never seen before not in training and not in the movies he sees Tracer fire fire coming from all sides of the valley pointed right in the middle where the American forces are and so he picks a point and starts to lay down suppressing fire and he's flying and he's in danger of hitting the Cliff of course he knows his speed he knows his distance from the map and he literally counts out loud while he lays down the suppressing fire

1 1,000 2 1,000 3 1,000 4 1,000 5 1,000 pulls hard on the stick pulls back up into the cloud comes down around again 1 1,000 2 1,000 3 1,000 4 1,000 Good Hits good hits it says over his radio and again he comes around 1 1,000 2 1,000 3 1,000 4 1,000 5,000 he runs out of ammunition fuel is fine flies back up to the top of the cloud tells his wingman you need to get down there his wingman isn't sure about the condition so the two of them fly back down together his wingman

lays down the suppressing fire and Johnny Bravo counts as they fly three feet apart from each other Wing to Wi 1 1,00 2 1,000 3 1,000 4 1,000 5 1,000 up and around again 1 1,000 2 1,000 3 1,000 4 1,000 5 1,000 that night 22 Americans went home alive with zero casualties my question is is where do people like Johnny Bravo come from who are they who would risk their lives for others so that may they may survive I asked Johnny Bravo I asked him why why would you do it why would you risk

your life so That Others May survive and he gave me the same answer that everybody in his position gives because they would have done it for me now if you think about it in the military they give medals to people who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others May gain and business we give bonuses to people who are willing to sacrifice others so that we may gain we have it backwards wouldn't you like to work in an organization in which you have the absolute confidence the absolute knowledge that other people that you may or

may not know who work in the same organization as you would be willing to sacrifice themselves so that you may survive and in and I'm not talking about giving your life I mean we don't even like to give up credit you know so where do people like Johnny Bravo come from well it's an age-old question they're not born they're actually made if you look at the human animal the human animal is like a machine there are systems inside our bodies that are trying to get us to do things that are in the interest of the

survival of the human animal right um just like in an IND in a business in a company if you want people to do something you offer them some sort of positive or negative incentive to direct the behavior right so if you want people to achieve a certain goal you offer them a bonus if they achieve that goal and they'll work towards that goal because they want the bonus it's a very simple system the human body works exactly the same way it works exactly the same way inside our bodies are chemicals that are trying to get

us to do things that are in the best interest of us if you've ever ever had a feeling of Happiness Pride Joy love fulfillment all of these feelings that we have are chemically produced feelings and they're produced by four chemicals predominantly these are basically responsible for all of the feelings that I would generically call happiness they are endorphins dopamine serotonin and oxytocin Edo these two chemicals endorphins and dopamine I like to call these the selfish chemicals because you don't really need anybody's help to get them right let me tell you let me tell you a

little bit about what they are endorphins endorphins are designed to do one thing and one thing only mask physical pain that's it that's what they do if you if you're a runner if you've ever gone and done heavy exercise you've heard of an endorphin rush or a runner's high basically what's happening is when that Runners is out there pushing their bodies harder than they've ever pushed before they feel good and when they're done with their run they feel fantastic and then an hour later they're in pain for damage they caused their muscles an hour before

right this is what endorphins are designed to do they're designed to mask physical pain the caveman reason for this stuff because this stuff was all from 50,000 years ago understand Homo Sapien existed at the same time as other homed species and yet we survived and they didn't what is it about this species that's so good at survival and thriving look at the world we've built it's not just that we're smart we're certainly not the strongest and we're certainly not the smartest it's that we're social animals we have to do things together together we have to

look after each other and we have to work together to ensure that we survive that we do well this is how we're designed right these chemicals are trying to make that happen so in these caveman times 50,000 years ago Paleolithic Era we had to eat we're not the strongest we're not the fastest but there's one thing that the human animal is made for endurance we could track an animal for hours and hours and hours and miles and miles and miles and if we were tired we'd keep going and if we got injured or we had

to bring the food back to the cave we'd continue to do it and it was so good it felt so good that maybe we'd even volunteer to go hunting the next day just like we get addicted to exercise right oh my God it was so much fun yesterday I will totally go hunting tomorrow right good system for the survival of the group good system by the way the reason laughing feels good is because of endorphins you're actually convulsing your internal organs and endorphins are masking the physical pain I'm sure everybody here has laughed so much

that the endorphins eventually run out you go stop stop it hurts endorphins they feel good dopamine dopamine is the feeling uh that you found something you're looking for or that you accomplished something you set out to accomplish so you know that feeling you get when you cross something off your to-do list that's dopamine feels awesome you know when you when you have a goal to to hit and you achieve that goal you're like yes you feel like you've won something right that's dopamine the whole purpose of dopamine is to make sure that we get stuff

done right um the uh the historical reason for dopamine we would never eat if we only waited to get till we got hungry because there's no guarantee that we would find food so dopamine exists to help us go looking for food we get dopamine when we eat which is one of the reasons we like eating and so when you see something that reminds you of something that feels good we want to do the behavior that helps us get that feeling right so let's say you're out there going for a walk and you see an apple

tree in the distance you get a small hit of dopamine and then what it does is it focuses us on our goals and now we start walking towards the apple tree and as The Apple Tree starts to get a little bigger we feel like we're making progress you get another little shot of dopamine and another little shot of dopamine until you get to the tree and you're like yes okay this is why we're told you must write down your goals your goals must be tangible there's a there's a biological reason for that we we're very

very visually oriented animals you have to be able to see the goal for it to biologically stay focused right if you don't write down your goals if you can't see your goals it's very hard to get motivated to get inspired for example think about corporate Visions right a corporate Vision do have to be something we can see right that's why it's called a vision you can see it right to be the biggest most respected to be the fastest growing are not Visions they're nothing right what does that even look like respected by whom your mother

yourself your friends your shareholders who knows what's the metric don't know it's a morphus doesn't motivate us just like I can't tell you you will get a bonus if you achieve more you're going to ask me how much more I'm going to say more doesn't work you need a tangible goal you need a tangible goal right here's a great vision Martin Luther King I Have a Dream that one day little black children and little white children will play on the playground together and hold hands together we can imagine that we can set our sights on

that and every time we achieve a goal and achieve a metric and achieve a milestone that makes us feel like we're making progress to the go the vision we can see we keep going and going and going until we achieve something remarkable you have to be able to see it dopamine like I said dopamine is the feeling you get when you set out to find something you're looking for as well talked about the to-do list I came home from a trip just a couple days ago and I had a bunch of errands to run and

I wrote down a little list of things I had to do and off I went right and as I was walking past I think it was the drag I don't remember I was walking past something I remembered oh I have to do that and I hadn't written it down on my I hadn't written down on my to-do list so I went in and finished what I needed to do and then when I came out I then wrote it on my to-do list and then crossed it out cuz I wanted the dopamine feels good dopamine comes

with a warning dopamine is highly highly highly addictive here are some other things that release dopamine alcohol nicotin gambling your cell phone oh you think I'm joking okay we've all been told that uh you know uh if you wake up in the morning and you crave a drink you might be an alcoholic well if you wake up in the morning the first thing you do is check your phone before you even get out of bed you might be an addict if you walk from room to room in your own apartment holding your telephone you might

be an addict when you're driving in your car and you get a text and your phone goes beep we we hate email true we love the beep the buzz the ding oh right you'll be there in 10 minutes and yet you have to look at it right now you might be an addict and even if you read it and it says are you free for dinner next Thursday and you have to reply immediately you can't wait the 10 minutes you might be an addict and for all you Gen Y out there who like to think

that you're better at multitasking because you grew up with the technology then why do you keep crashing your cars when you're texting you're not you're not better at multitasking you're better at getting distracted in fact if you look at the statistics ADD and ADHD have diagnoses of ADD and ADHD have risen 66% in the past 10 years okay ADD and ADHD is a frontal lobe disorder right are you telling me out of nowhere 66% of our youth have a frontal Globe problem where did that come from no it's a misdiagnosis right what what are the

what are the symptoms of a dopamine addiction to technology distractability inability to uh to get things done easily easily distracted you know shortness of attention it's all the same things so we misdiagnose things it's this it's the addictive quality of dopamine we can also get addicted to Performance in our companies when all they do is give us numbers to hit numbers to hit numbers to hit and a bonus you get and a bonus you get and a bonus you get all they're doing is feeding us with dopamine and we can't help ourselves all we do

is want more more more it's no surprise that the banks destroyed the economy because one of the things we know about dopamine addict is they will do anything to get another hit sometimes at the sacrifice of their own resources and their relationships ask any alcoholic gambling addict or or drug addict ask ask them how their relationships are doing and if they've squandered any of their resources it's an addiction dopamine is dangerous if it is unbalanced it is hugely helpful when in a comfortable and balanced system but when unbalanced it's dangerous and it's destructive you don't

need anybody's help to get these go for a run achieve your goals you'll get dopamine you'll get endorphins but you won't have any feeling of fulfillment or love or trust that's where these come in these are attempting to manage these this is what makes our society great this is where people like Johnny Bravo come from it's because of these two chemicals that leaders really fulfill their great responsibility outside in the world is danger at all times for various reasons in caveman times that danger may have been you know a saber-tooth tiger it may have been

the weather it may have been a lack of resources it may have been who knows any number of things things that with no conscience are trying to kill you they want to end your life and so how do we survive we work together and together we come together in our groups in our companies and our tribes to feel like we belong to be around people who believe what we believe so that we may feel safe when we're surrounded by people who have our best interests in mind and we feel safe we will organize ourselves and

cooperate to face the dangers externally don't forget the outside dangers are a constant in a modern world the outside dangers may be your competition that's trying to put you out of business or at least steal your business it might be the es and flows of the economy it might be terrorism all of these unknown is all trying to put you out of business take away your job take away your livelihood end it for you nothing personal it's a constant inside our organizations the dangers we Face are not a constant they are a variable and they

are the decisions of leadership as to how safe they make us feel when we go to work this is the job of leaders asop said it better than I can there's an asop fable about four oxen that stand tail to tail and whenever the lion tries to eat them no matter what angle from which he attacks he will always be met with horns however due to infighting and disagreements they separate and they go and graze in different parts of the field and one by one the lion picks them off and kills them all when we

stand together we can more easily face the dangers outside when we break up inside our companies if our leaders don't allow us a space to feel safe inside our own own companies to feel like we belong then we have to we're forced to exert our own energy to protect ourselves from each other and by the way expose ourselves to Greater Danger from the outside if you have to worry about politics if you have to worry about someone stealing your credit if you have to worry about your boss not having your back think about the energy

you invest not in your business not in the products you're trying to develop not in your work not in how great you're producing not in your creativity but in just keeping yourself feeling safe is destructive the responsibility of leadership is two things one to determine who gets in and who doesn't get in this is what it means to start with why what are our values what are our beliefs who can we allow in second thing is to decide how big this is how big do we make the circle of safety how big do we make

the circle of belonging do we keep it around just our sea- level Executives and call it an inner circle and allow others to try and fend for themselves and may be try and get into our Inner Circle or do we extend it to the outermost edges of the organization great leaders extend the circle of safety the circle of belonging out to the outermost edges so the most Junior person feels like they belong feels safe feels like they have top cover from somebody like Johnny Bravo that's what these other two chemicals are trying to do serotonin

is the leadership chemical is the responsible for feelings of Pride and status when you this is why public recognition is very important we are social animals and we need the recognition of others this is why we have the Oscars and this is why we have public Awards uh events this is why we have commencement for graduation I mean think about it what does it really take to get to graduate college you need to pay your bills fulfill the minimum requirements and and and collect enough credits that's it right it's a formula you could get an

email that says congratulations you fulfilled all the requirements for graduation in close please print out the PDF of your diploma PS Magna Kum laa right wouldn't feel so good right so instead we have a big ceremony to recognize the accomplishment and in the audience we put our family and our friends and our teachers all of those in our tribe who've supported us and watched our backs as we've made it through and then we show up on that day and we go up on that stage and we take our diploma it feels great we feel our

status rise we feel our pride go up and by the way when you have serotonin in your veins your confidence goes up also and here's the best part about serotonin at the exact moment that you took your diploma and you felt that surge of Serotonin go through your body at the exact moment your parents sitting in the audience also got a surge of Serotonin and also felt an intense Pride watching you graduate and this is what serotonin is trying to do it is trying to reinforce the relationship between parent and child boss and employee coach

and player the caregiver and the one who is is is grateful for the support they are given and think about it think of the speeches that we we give if you give an award to somebody what do they say I couldn't have done it I thank God I thank my parents I thank my coach we thank the person who we believe was looking out for us we could not have done this without them we say and they look at us and they say so proud of you and we work to make them proud great teams

don't want to win the trophy great teams want to win one for the coach they want to make the coach proud We want to make our parents proud and it raises our status and it raises our confidence and it feels good and we in turn will look after others so that they may accomplish the same this is what serotonin is trying desperately to do the problem is you can trick serotonin we live in a materialist Society so we judge status very often in our country based on how much you make right so any conspicuous display

of wealth raises your status this is why they put the logos on the outside no good on the inside nobody can see them we want the red line of our of our PR glasses how good you you own a pair of designer shoes how good does it feel to put on your Gucci shoes oh my god it feels so good you walk out and you feel a million bucks you can actually feel your confidence rise when you put on you put on the stuff right because it's showing this display of status it feels great the

problem is there was no real Rel relationship that was reinforced because of it you tricked the system that's why we keep trying to accomplish things and accumulate more and more material goods and yet we never feel successful because there was no relationship we tricked it we gained it serotonin is the leadership chemical the reason I call it the leadership chemical is a historical reason a very simple historical reason we had a very practical problem as our animal was developing as the homo sapian was develing in we lived in communities of about 100 and 150 people

and there's a very practical issue which is if we're hungry and somebody brings back food and drop a carcass on the floor we're all going to rush in to eat and if you're lucky enough to be built like a linebacker you will elbow your way to the front and if you're the artistic one of the family you get the elbow in the face not a good system to keep the whole tribe alive and definitely not a good system for cooperation because remember the value of group living means that if I trust you and you trust

me I can fall asleep at night and trust that you will alert me to danger if I don't trust you I can't go to sleep at night it's the same in our companies if we trust each other we will turn our backs we will take risks we will innovate we will do things that will change the course of our world if I don't trust you I can't do that I can't do that there's value in group living and group working and so if you got an elbow in the face that afternoon ODS are very high

that you're not going to wake the guy who punched you if danger there you're just not going to do it bad system and so we evolved into hierarchical animals we're constantly assessing and judging each other constantly arranging ourselves who's the alpha who's the dominant who's the one who sort of is the is the is the more dominant personality or dominant uh uh talent in the room in caveman times it might have been physical muscle in a creative industry it might be talent in you know in the military it might be courage there's no standard by

which we uh judge Alphas it's relative to the industries we're in and it's relative to us as well if you've ever met someone and you were nervous while you were meeting them you're not the alpha we've all had the experience where we're meeting somebody and we can sense that they're nervous meeting us you're the alpha I'll tell you a little aside that's kind of funny you know when women all live together their uh menstrual cycles um align right assuming they're not on the pill then it doesn't work right but if they're not on the pill

that all the menstrual cycles go together on the same schedule it's not arbitrary they always align with the alpha females schedule and the reason is is because when a woman is in her menstrual cycle she can't bear children and so in evolutionary terms you want the alpha male and the alpha female to to do it so you can have Alpha children right nice strong strapping kids are going to survive but if she's off the market that produces competition so Mother Nature has in created a very clever way that when she's off the market everyone's off

the market back to the talk so we're constantly judging and assessing each other who's Alpha right and what we do is when we assess that someone else is the alpha we voluntarily take a step back and allow them to eat first Alphas get first choice of meat and first choice of mate good system good system the alpha gets eat first the rest of us may not get the best cut meat but we will get to eat eventually and we won't get an elbow in the face good system we'll happily alert them to Danger later good

system this is why we're constantly trying to raise our status is because there are benefits to being the alpha people will do things for us and step back and offer us favors right we we're and we to this day we're perfectly comfortable giving special treatment to our Alphas no one has a problem that your boss makes more money than you you might think he's an ass but you don't have a problem that he makes more money nobody has a problem that somebody outrank who outranks us at work has a bigger office than us doesn't offend

us it is deeply ingrained in us we happily step aside and allow our Alpha's first choice of meat and first choice of mate it's good to be the king there are advantages that come with being the alpha you get special treatment you get to eat first people show you love and respect it boosts the serotonin you walk around like this it boosts your confidence it's awesome but comes at a cost you see the group is not stupid we're not giving all of that stuff away for free leadership Alpha comes at a cost you see we

expect that when danger threatens us from the outside that the person who's actually stronger the person who's better fed and the person who is actually teaming with serotonin and actually has higher confidence than the rest of us we expect them to run towards the danger to protect protect us this is what it means to be a leader the cost of leadership is self-interest if you're not willing to give up your perks when it matters then you probably shouldn't get promoted you might be an authority but you will not be a leader leadership comes at a

cost you don't get to do less work when you get more senior you have to do more work and the more work you have to do is put yourself at risk to look after others that is the anthropological definition of what a leader is this is why we're so offended by these bankr boys who pay themselves astronomical salaries it has nothing to do with the number it has to do with the fact that they have violated a deep-seated social contract we know that they made all of that money and allowed their people to be sacrificed

in fact they may have sacrificed their people for the money if I told you we're going to give $150 million to Nelson Mandela would anyone have a problem with that nope $250 million to Mother Teresa got an issue with it no it's not the number it's not the amount of money they make it's that we are deeply and viscerally offended that we know that we allowed them to have this alpha position and they did not fulfill their responsibility of the alpha they're supposed to sa sacrifice themselves for us never sacrifice us for themselves this is

why we're angry and offended and don't trust them they fail oh there's more oxytocin this is the best chemical of all oxytocin is the feeling of love and trust and friendship it's all the warm and fuzzies it's all the unicorns and rainbows it's the reason we like to spend time with our friends even if we don't do anything with them we just sit and watch TV we love their company I promise you nearly every single person sitting in this room today chose the person they're sitting next to you're not sitting next to a stranger you're

sitting next to somebody you met came with or or kind of know a little bit why because it makes you feel safer doesn't it if you got up and went and sat next to strangers wouldn't feel so good that's the feeling of oxytocin oxytocin is that intense feeling of safety that someone's got your back there are multiple ways you can get oxytocin one way to get it is physical contact hugging feels wonderful right this when women uh give birth to children huge surge of oxytocin in their body this is what's responsible for the mother parent

the the mother child Bond right it's all that oxytocin in the system um this is why shaking hands matters imagine you're doing a deal with someone and you're ready to sign the contract and you say I'm so excited to do business with you and they go I don't need to shake let's sign the contract I'm also excited to do business with you you go great well let's shake on it then they go no no no no I agree to all the terms let's get this this deal done I can't wait to work with you there

you might get everything you want in the contract but business relationships are not rational they're about feeling safe they're about feeling we belong it's human and one of the ways we want to know that that relationship is solidified is with physical touch there simple refusal to touch you to exchange that oxytocin means one of two things will happen you will either completely Scuttle the deal or you will go into it nervous human bonds matter another way you can get oxytocin is through acts of human generosity an act of human generosity is defined is giving of

your time and energy and expecting nothing in return money doesn't work sorry if I told you that this morning I gave $1,000 to charity what would you think of me you'd be like good for you what do you want to medal but if I told you that last Saturday I gave up my day and I went and painted schools in the Inner City then what would you think you'd be like nice cool I should do more right the the value of my labor much less than $1,000 could have hired many more people for $1,000 to

go paint schools in the inner city but you see as human beings we put a premium on time because it is an equal commodity and it is a non-redeemable commodity you spend money you make money you spend time you'll never get it back some of you are sitting in this room right now saying I will never get this time back I got nothing for you so we put a premium on people who give us their time and energy a leader who says to you I'll pay for something for you is not a leader a leader

comes and sits down next to you and says how can I help you is a leader I was talking to some um oil Executives and they were trying to convince me that they really care about um how fulfilled and how happy their employees are at work to which I said no you don't and they said no we do and I said no you don't and they said yeah we do you see how this went and I said I bet you hired some high- price consultancy to come and do a web survey about whether people like

their jobs or not and they said well we didn't hire a consultancy I said okay so it's kind of like sending your son an email right dear son your mother and I care that you feel like a valuable part of this family please tell us candidly what we can do better so that you feel like you belong here because we really love you love Dad or you go into his room you sit on his bed and you say hey son your mom and I really care that you feel like a valuable member of this family

please tell us candidly what we can do better because we want you to feel like you belong and we really love you same words same intention same desire the difference is one you gave time and energy and the other one you didn't this is the problem with email it's too easy it's too easy there's no time and energy expended it's too easy don't feel anything if I come to your house for dinner and you make me a lovely dinner the next day I send you a very ni thank you email what a wonderful host you

are or 3 days later you receive a handwritten note from me with the exact same words that were written in the email which one makes you feel better handwritten note the sentiment was the same the words were the same the difference is one took a little more time and a little more energy leaders are the ones who give us their time and give us their energy not the ones who give us their money it doesn't count doesn't work just biologically doesn't work this is how you get oxytocin doing nice things for people that require that

you sacrifice a little bit of time a little bit of energy something you will never get back and if you expect something in return then you weren't really giving in the first place you take someone out for dinner because you want them to hire you you're not really taking them out for dinner you want something in return it's just a pro protracted transaction it's not relationship building it's nonsense I was walking down the streets of New York true story and the guy in front of me his backpack opened a bunch of paper fil Spilled Out

on the on the street didn't think much of it I bent down GED the papers up handed them back to him and pointed out that his bag had opened I did a small Act of generosity for somebody I got a small burst of oxytocin I felt good also the person on the receiving end of the act of generosity feels good they get a shot of oxytocin he felt good he says thanks I get to the end of the block and I'm standing waiting to cross the street and a guy who also happens to be standing

waiting to cross the street turns around true story turns around and says to me I saw what you did back there that was really cool as it turns out witnessing acts of human generosity release oxytocin remember our bodies are trying to get us to repeat behaviors that are in our best interest and it's making us feel good when we see or do acts of human generosity so that we will do them in fact the more oxytocin you have in your body the more generous you actually become in other words the more you do the more

you want to do it gets better than that lots of oxytocin in your body inhibits addiction it makes it very difficult to get addicted to something when you have lots of oxytocin in your body it actually inhibits addiction it boosts your immune system it makes you healthier that's why happy people live longer it's why couples live longer oxytocin it actually is good for us it increases our ability to solve problems it increases our creativity it's really good for us and it's not addictive it just feels great it takes time to build up though you know

if I I went on a date with a girl the other day it was a first date we totally got along great we're going to get married why are you laughing that's my social life the reason you laugh is because you inherently know that I cannot form a bond of trust strong enough to get married in 7even days you know that why don't you go on a couple more dayses right inherently you know that right but if I told you that I've been dating some for S Years and we're not married yet what do you

say what's wrong in other words we know that that Bond of trust takes more than seven days and less than seven years don't know how long it takes though so when you start a new job and you're really excited to work there and they're really excited to have you don't quite feel like you belong you don't quite feel like you're trusted yet right even though you were really excited they really ex it takes time and you have to do little acts of generosity and make little sacrifices do little things for people not big risks small

risks it's like dating you know you don't start by buying them a diamond you start by taking them for lunch buying them a drink you know little bits then they take you out or they you take them out again you do something a little bigger then you do that in a movie then they come over and then you buy them flowers and then you say I love you and one day you wake up in the morning it's like you press this belief button you're just I I'm in love I don't know when it happened just

clicks and you feel like you belong same thing at work same thing at work it just clicks and you feel like you belong cuz you got enough oxytocin built up in your system we don't allow this to happen we're too busy sending emails we're too busy sending emails the next time you want to tell somebody something email is fantastic for the exchange of information right it's fantastic here's the report you wanted the meeting's at 4:00 fantastic what did you think of my idea do not reply on an email that's an emotional question email is a

rational tool you get up from your desk you walk the 30 ft and you say wanted to tell you what I thought of your idea and I promise you not only will that information be better received but you will start to create relationship because oxytocin starts to get released if you can't get up and walk 30t pick up the telephone I've done it it's an amazing thing you pick up the phone you go hey they're like hey what's the matter they're like no I'm just I'm just replying to your email wanted to tell you what

I thought what and people tell me but I need a paper trail have the conversation hang up and say just to confirm what we talked about boom there's your paper trail the reason we get so many emails is because we reply to them all and 12 emails are sent and then somebody misunderstands something and somebody gets angry and then you have to pick up the phone and deal with it anyway do it at the beginning quicker easier better biology give your time and give your energy and this is why leadership is really difficult because you

can't give it to everyone because you don't have enough to give to everyone you just can't you have to make sure that you can trust others to trust others to trust others to trust others and this is what happens in the circle of belonging in the circle of safety this is what effective bureaucracy is which is as the CEO as the leader or whatever your job is you have one responsibility and one responsibility only which is to make sure the people you know that you have physical contact with you know their names are confident and

feel looked after and encourage them to do the same for the ones who work beneath them who work beneath them who work them and when this group of people really feels safe then they will invite in the customer to also feel safe they will talk to these people as if they are human I actually flew on a an airline recently and I it was I was appalled at how I was treated it was disgusting it was like cattle right and I said something I said why do you treat people like cattle and she literally said

to me I'm sorry sir I have to do it or I'll lose my job what did she tell me my organiz that I work for doesn't make me feel safe I don't feel like like I belong so I'm going to treat you like dirt to protect myself as opposed to somebody who feels safe it says sir I will do everything in my power to make sure that you feel happy and good because I'm not worried that's called a highly effective organization there's one more chemical I haven't told you about the Big C cortisol cortisol is

the feeling of stress and and the feeling of anxiety we share these chemicals with all the social mammals and so when you see a herd of gazelle you've all seen the documentary on Discovery or whatever right see a heard of gazelle grazing and one of them thinks they hear a rustle in the grass and they go head right that's what cortisol does Cortisol is designed to Keep Us Alive it is the first stage of fight or flight it makes us paranoid it makes all of our s is hyper attuned to look for danger it injects

uh glucose into our muscles to make us stiff and ready to go in case we need to fight or flight it increases our heart rate like crazy right and it makes us start looking it makes us paranoid to find the danger and the cool thing about cortisol when you work in a social environment is if other people sense that you're nervous they get nervous so all the other gazelle go they didn't hear anything they just saw Steve over there get really freaked out and so they got all freaked out and now they all start looking

for the danger good system and one of them who didn't even hear the initial rustle in the grass sees the lion runs they all run they all live another day good system so that when we go to work and somebody says I think there's going to be layoffs all of us are like what do you mean wait there's going to be we're all paranoid now we're all freak I shouldn't have talked in that meeting H we start to get crazy we start to get paranoid our hearts start to race it's what cortisol does it's trying

to Keep Us Alive you wake up in the middle of the night you hear a bump in the middle of the night what's the first thing you do you wake the person next to you and then what do they do they go and if there's nothing there you go and trust your eyes right you go looking for it we're visual animals right if there's nothing there you go like this cortisol leaves our body and we relax and the Heart bait goes back down cortisol to get all of that extra energy to make us paranoid to

make us self interested it needs to shut down non-essential systems CU it has to get it from somewhere right so it shuts off things like growth you don't need your fingernails to grow at that moment shuts it off the other thing it shuts off is our immune system don't need it in that moment the problem is you're not supposed to have cortisol in your system all the time you're supposed to have it in and then gone and when we go to work in a place that doesn't make us feel like we belong that doesn't make

us feel safe when we're at work guess what we got little bits of cortisol dripping in our body drip drip drip drip makes us paranoid drip I know my boss hates me I know he hates me I he hates all my ideas I know it drip drip it makes us self-interested one of the things cortisol does it inhibits the release of oxytocin biologically if you work in a high stress environment where you don't feel safe you are biologically less empathetic and less generous we don't care about each other because we're too busy trying to protect

ourselves drip drip drip our immune systems are now compromised drip drip drip we live in a country with some of the best medical education in the world some of the best medical systems in the world some of the best doctors in the world some of the best hospitals in the world some of the best medicines in the world please explain to me why diabetes is on the rise heart disease is on the rise some cancers are on the rise it ain't partially hydrogenated oils our jobs are killing us and the people who are responsible are

the leaders and we also know that parents who come home stressed out their kids learn that this is what work is that work is something that makes you short-tempered and and and unhappy and so they expect it as they grow older worse we know that parents who come home upset and angry it has such a negative impact on their children that there's some studies that show that they might actually become bullies because of their unhappy parents who hate their jobs and have excessive amounts of stress our companies are literally killing us so what are you

going to do about it what are you going to do about it leadership is not a rank leadership is not a position leadership is a decision leadership is a choice it has nothing to do with your position in the organization if you decide to look after the person to the left of you and look after the person to the right of you you have become a leader leader you've seen the movie 300 right the Spartans the greatest fighting force of all time you want to know one of the things that made the Spartans great wasn't

their muscles wasn't their Spears it was their Shields they stood Shield to shield and the failinks was strong because they all those shields were big and they were told when they were young children you either bring your Shield home or you come home on your Shield the punishment for for losing your Shield was tremendous in battle because if you lost your Shield that means you cannot protect the person to the left of you and the person to the right of you and you have destroyed the failings it's the shield that matters not the spear not

the spear it's your willingness to sacrifice yourself not your life maybe your credit maybe your little time maybe a little energy maybe your time you know maybe getting up from your desk and talking to somebody for 30 minutes instead of sending a three-minute email it's your willingness to sacrifice for someone to hold that Shield up so that they feel safe that makes you a leader and you want to know how you beat a dopamine addiction if you're worried that you're addicted to Performance and all this dopamine things Alcoholics Anonymous has been highly effective for decades

80 something years we all know the first step of the 12 Steps we joke about it right admit you have a problem do you know the 12th step don't say it's supposed to be anonymous I'll tell you what the 12th step is Alcoholics Anonymous knows that if you master all 11 steps but not the 12th you will drink again if you master the 12th step you will beat the disease what's the 12th step the 12th step is the commitment to help another alcoholic service service to another oxytocin wins serotonin serotonin wins the more we look

after each other the safer we feel the more we feel like we belong and the more we will work together to confront the dangers outside do this for others and others will become Johnny Bravo thanks very much [Music]