This Is Why You Don't Succeed | Simon Sinek on The Millennial Generation

[Music] i mean the technology is great you know it's lots of fun very helpful makes a lot of things easy but like anything in the world there's um there is too much of a good thing you know um and i think one of the things we don't talk about is what is the balance of technology in our lives and i would argue that for many of us it's out of balance we know that the chemical dopamine is released whenever we get a bing buzz flash or beat from our phone or email right so dopamine is

the exact same chemical that's released in alcohol nicotine and gambling right in other words it can be addictive if left unbalanced a little alcohol is great too much alcohol not so great gambling is fun too much gambling really bad right technology is wonderful too much technology can be very destructive and destroy our relationships like all addictions destroy our relationships right and so what the one thing we're not considering is what is the right balance if you wake up in the morning and you check your phone before you say good morning to your spouse that's a

problem right if you have phantom beeps that's a problem that comes from something right if you find yourself incapable of getting through a day without needing to check that's a problem right now where it gets really dangerous is with kids millennials some of them aren't kids anymore right um so almost all alcoholics on the planet discovered alcohol when they were children when we're very very young the only thing we need is the approval of our parents right when we go through adolescence we now need approval from our peers frustrating for our parents very important for

us because it allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the larger group right very stressful time and we're supposed to learn in this time of anxiety to rely on our friends to reach out to our friends for help that's we're supposed to learn some people quiet by accident discover alcohol and they learn the numbing effects of dopamine actually help them get through the stress of adolescence this connection unfortunately becomes hardwired and so for the rest of their lives when they face any kind of financial career or social stress they don't turn to

a person they turn to the bottle right now we have age restrictions on alcohol cigarettes and gambling because we know that an immature mind is not yet strong enough or mature enough to deal with the powers of these addicting chemicals these addictive chemicals right so we put an age limit we have no such age limit or age restriction on social media or cell phones right so ostensibly what we've done is we've thrown open the liquor cabinet and we've said to our adolescents hey i know this whole adolescent thing is really stressful so here's the vodka

take as much as you need that's basically what we've done and so what we have is an entire generation that's growing up addicted and like all addicts they haven't learned the skill set of when they suffer stress to turn to a person what they do is they turn to the device and what that only does is increase senses of isolation and loneliness and can actually destroy relationships we've all had the experience where you're with somebody walking down the street in a meeting out for dinner whatever and they pull out their phone and you feel like

an idiot right or when you're talking to them and they're going uh-huh uh-huh you sort of like what am i what's the point of this now take an entire generation that has no memory of a time before the device we at least can reference times before cell phones and internet and social media we at least have a point of reference they don't so this is their normal that that's how they feel so you have an entire generation growing up with addiction and an increased sense of loneliness and isolation we're already seeing the results we're seeing

increased rates of suicide amongst this generation we're seeing increased rates of accidental deaths due to overdoses amongst this generation we're seeing increased numbers of mass homicides largely performed by this generation school shootings yeah over 70 perpetrated by kids born after the year 1984. we um schools universities are now dealing with numbers they've never dealt with before of kids requesting leaves of absence due to depression we're already seeing it right we're seeing the effects of loneliness and isolation we're seeing it and yet we're not reacting to it we're not doing anything about it right and parents

are a lot to blame for this because parents there are some schools who want to restrict phones in schools and it's the parents who demand that they keep their phones in case of emergencies seriously seriously when was the last time the cell phone was used for an emergency what time are you coming home what time should we pick you up and if there is an emergency you call the office and they know what classroom the kid's in and in five minutes they'll bring the kid to talk to you on the phone like the old way

worked just fine remember we talked before about innovation it has to solve a real human problem what human problem exactly did we solve by compressing the five minute time frame we added the problem we didn't solve it so that's one huge problem so combine that with the facts you have a an addicted generation that doesn't have the skill set to ask for help combined with the fact that they're so good at facebook and instagram they're good at putting filters on everything so they're good at showing you how smart and strong they are these kids who

commit suicide you go look at their instagrams you would have no clue that they were depressed because they're happy and they're star athletes right you'd have no clue because they're really good so when we say silly things like my door is always open you're assuming they have the courage to come in combined with the fact that they're subject largely not all but too many to a failed parenting strategy because their parents told them they were special they could have anything they wanted they can be anything they want they got medals for coming in last which

by the way we know doesn't work it devalues the medal for the one who comes in first and the one who came in last it makes them feel stupid because they know they didn't deserve it right the kids got into honors classes not because they deserved it but because the parents complained and some of them got good grades not because they earned them but because the teachers didn't want to deal with the parents and then the kids graduate college and they get a job and in an instant they find out they're not special they don't

get anything for coming in last the parents can't get them a promotion and you can't have whatever you want just because you want it and in an instant their entire self-image is shattered and so you have an entire generation growing up with lower self-confidence than previous generations so you have lower self-confidence than previous generations combined with an inability to ask for help with things that you're struggling with and you turn to social media or device you keep checking you keep checking you count your likes you count your likes you count you follow your account your

followers if somebody unfriends you oh my god it's trauma right the way they break up with each other is they just ghost each other just cut each other out and stop returning to text returning text and returning phone calls because they don't have the skill set to say hey it's not working out it's not me it's you right there's no closure on things right combined with the fact there's an institutionalized impatience so they've grown up in a world of instant gratification you want to buy something you go on amazon it shows up the next day

you want to get in touch with someone you don't leave a message on their machine and wait four hours for them to get the message you just text them and they get back to you immediately you want to watch a movie you just log on and watch it you don't have to check movie times right everything happens you want to get a date swipe right you don't even have to muster up the courage to go like hey you know you don't have to there you go got a date right and so the problem is they're

accused of being entitled i don't think they're entitled at all not at all i think they're impatient i keep meeting these fantastic smart driven ambitious idealistic fantastic kids who graduated school they got a job they want to make an impact in the world and i go up to them and say how is it going and they say i think i'm going to quit i'm like why they're like i'm not making an impact i'm like you've been here eight months and it's as if it's as if they see the summit of a mountain as if they're

standing at the foot of a mountain they can see the summit they can see the thing they want i want to make an impact what they don't see is the mountain this large immovable object you can go up fast you can go up slow i don't care but there's still a mountain what they don't understand is that life that relationships and career fulfillment are a journey there's no app for that i got nothing you've got to go through the slow plotting annoying meandering process called career and life but if they don't get it in eight

months they go look for it somewhere else and they don't get it they go look for it's impatience and because they don't have the skill set to ask for help and because they feel lonely it compounds and compounds so then we dump them in office environments that are built on theories from the 80s and 90s that prioritizes a number before a person and no one really cares about their confidence and their personal growth they're just numbers on a spreadsheet and so they enter work cultures that don't help them and the problem is they're entering the

workforce at a deficit i hear from kids they tell me that they struggle to form deep meaningful relationships and the companies don't care and so it's destructive to them as individuals but ultimately it'll hurt the companies because more and more millennials are entering the workforce i believe to your point about solution that now the responsibility on companies is even greater than it's ever been before to take care of its people because if the environments in which we're asking our youngest workers to work in isn't built to help them i can't even imagine what the suicide

and homicide and just the rates of depression you know an accidental death due to overdose are going to look like in the future it's going to reach epidemic proportions it's already the the statistics are already alarming and yet nobody's sounding any alarm bells parents have to intervene we have to stop giving our kids free access to social media and phones at young ages they are not ready for it their minds cannot cope with the dopamine balance is fine you can give a kid a phone but they can't use it in their bedroom they can't have

it at the dinner table they can't take it to school they can only have it up to a certain hour and you take it away they're children you can take the phone away we've got to intervene as parents but as companies we now have to deal with the influx of kids that are coming into our companies with addiction watch i see it all the time walk through any office you'll see the older employees have their phones on the sides of their computers as they're working you'll see the youngest employees have their phones face up in

front of their keyboards between their arms as they're working and this is how they work and this is the science is alarming they did experiments on mice where they they did the multitasking they put flashing lights to mimic going from the computer to the cell phone the computer to the cell phone to the tv the mice that were exposed to the changing lights it took them three times longer to solve a maze than the mice that weren't and the damage was permanent it didn't improve when they stopped the lights and leadership now is even more

important yeah and the leaders now are even more irresponsible you are responsible for the lives of human beings and some of these human beings are your children so okay you bad ceo who thinks all the stuff that i talk about is craziness and you don't have time to make these changes this is i hear we don't have time it's a war out there i've actually heard executives tell me that it's a war out there i don't have time for this leadership stuff i know guys who go to war and i'll tell ya it's not a

war what you're going through you know you tinker with money it's not a war you do have time for this and if it's really that way then what were you doing when it wasn't a war it's even more it's what an indictment that in peaceful times when times were good that you weren't focusing on this stuff right but my point is is a lot of these executives have children of this age working at other companies and my question is would you like those other companies would you like those other executives to care about the growth

of your child the confidence of your child the career success of your child would you like those other companies to help your kids learn the skills of social interaction the ability to ask for and receive help would you like their jobs to give that to them set the example do it for other people's children every single employee 100 is someone someone someone's daughter a hundred percent and if you want someone to take responsibility for the life of your children in their company then why don't we start taking responsibility for the lives of the children in

our companies [Music] you