Everybody and welcome to inside quest our goal is to take you inside the minds of the world's most effective thinkers so that you can learn with ease but they have oftentimes learned with great difficulty and if you pay attention I promise you our guests will help you acquire the behaviors and thought patterns you need to be successful in anything that you're trying to accomplish our today's guest understands Leadership and I am NOT talking about from the features and benefits standpoint I'm talking about from a Jedi level deep limbic system standpoint the way that he combines
an understanding of biology and psychology and quite frankly just the overall human condition gives his insights unparalleled potency and usability which you know I am obsessed with his lessons on leadership ring true not only because he spent the better part of a decade systematically studying Them but because his transition from marketing consultant to evangelist for global change came as a result of a personal crisis having fallen out of love with the very company he created he turned about with depression into a revolution of the self that has helped him become one of the most impactful
voices in the world of leadership his TED talk on how great leaders inspire action through their why is the third most viewed talk of all time on ted.com He's the two-time best-selling author whose ideology has captured the imagination of some of the most important leaders of our time including the heads of many Fortune 500 companies the US government and multiple branches of the military and the United Nations now why is he so popular because his insights cut to the heart of what people crave in their leaders an ability to create an environment that fosters trust
and a feeling of emotional safety and The willingness to sacrifice themselves when necessary for the benefit of others please help me in welcoming the man whose own vision for the future is so inspiring an army is rising up around him and I very much include myself in that the author of together is better start with why and leaders eat last be incomparable Simonsen what a pleasure it is to have you on the show thanks for having me The truly our pleasure by the way you've been a part of the lexicon of this company since we
started when we were a very small handful of people in a very lonely office in Compton our chief marketing officer Nick Robinson said dude this guy is written like exactly what we talked about here you've got to see it it codifies everything that we've sort of been bumbling around with and first he made us watch your talk the TEDx talk which was amazing and then he Had us all read the book and it really did formalized sort of those vague notions of what this needed to become for us and so that became our mantra like
we need to understand our Y which forced us to really put language behind it which is it's been just incredibly incredibly instructive and one of the goals of the show is to bring on people that I just owe a debt of gratitude so I can say thank you that's nice thank you thank you it really really has been Amazing so it's amazing now I hunted your Twitter feed okay it's amazing thank you and I wanted to start with something that you put on there and you said we can learn about our future from our past
because regardless of technology or the speed of innovation people are still people true the thing that I really found interesting is you seem to understand people what are some key traits about just humans that every leader should know well I think one of The things that we forget is that we are a legacy machine working in a very different environment than we were designed for you know our species sort of started showing up about 50,000 years ago there were other hominid species that existed at the time they died off we survived and it was those
evolutionary traits that gave us the opportunity to outlive our competition but also survive and thrive even as the environment around us changed we lived In populations that were never bigger than about a hundred and fifty people for 40,000 of the 50,000 years that we've I've done this planet it's only the past 10,000 years with farming that we've been living in populations that were then we're larger than that in other words we're not made for this which means all the rules of being human are exactly the same as they used to be when we were living
in populations of about 150 and so if you can understand those things you really understand what works and what doesn't work regardless of the conditions the fact of the matter is we are social animals and we respond to the environments were in always our very survival depends on our ability to cooperate and trust with the people that we live or work with right you can take a good person and put them in a bad environment and that person will do bad things you can take a person who maybe The group doesn't trust maybe they've even
performed bad acts you put them in a good environment and they're capable of turning their lives around and becoming remarkable members of society in other words it's not the person it's the environment leaders are responsible for that environment and I think it leaders forget that leaders think that they're responsible for the results there's not a leader on the planet that Is responsible for the results a leader is responsible for the people who are responsible for the results and if you take care of that take care of the people take care of the environment things go
just fine you know we're obsessed with this idea of like getting the right people on the bus you know as if it's this game that you just sort of keep changing people out you know some sort of sort of mix and match or something but we never ask Which bus and who's driving the bus you know because it's not it's if the bus matters so I'm I'm I'm more obsessed with what happens to people when they come together and protected or unprotected environments and how we respond to those environments that was a key insight for
me like you you say that you recursively ask why until you get to the point where you can't go backwards anymore and that to me is one of those moments like when you understand that Humans just by their nature they react to their environment all of a sudden it becomes pretty critical to think about the bus right not only who's on the bus but what is the bus what's that environment so I get it from a leadership perspective when you you have rank which you do very good job of delineating between a leader and help
people understand how if you don't have rank how you could still be a leader for change in an environment that Needs change so as you said leadership has nothing to do with rank right leadership is a responsibility as you gain rank you may have more responsibilities over the lives of more people but it doesn't change the nature of leadership I know many many people who sit at the highest levels of organizations who are not leaders they have authority and we do as they tell us because they have authority over us but we wouldn't follow them
and yet I know Many people who've made a choice who have no rank but they've made a choice to look after the person to the left of them and look after the person to the right of them and we would follow them anywhere and that's what leadership it is it's the responsibility to take care of the people around us the people with whom we work and leadership is a practice like any other it is a skill that can be learned and that means it requires practice you don't just Suddenly get a promotion you're now in
a management position then you're a leader right it's not how it works if only right if only I know the reality is we have to learn it we have to practice it we have to get good at it which is what the junior ranks are for so even if you don't have the ability to make decisions that will impact the entire organization you do have the ability to make decisions that will impact the life of another human being How they feel about their own jobs how well their responsibility goes how easily they can get work
done how supported they feel how supported they feel if they make a mistake you know do they feel that they can turn to you and ask you for help that's all within your control it's the same thing as being in a relationship or being a friend with being a good friend you know means that our friends can rely on us that can trust us they can turn to us there's no Difference it's human beings as human relationships at the end of the day becoming a leader is about a transition and everybody has to go through
it if you want to become a leader and as an aside I will say leadership is like parenting in the sense that everybody has the capacity to be a parent that doesn't mean everybody wants to be a parent and that doesn't mean everybody should be a parent leadership is the same everyone is the capacity to be a Leader it doesn't mean everybody wants to be a leader and it doesn't mean everybody should be a leader and the reason is it comes with massive massive responsibility sometimes people just don't want it it's a lifestyle they choose
not to happen that's fine that's absolutely fine but if someone chooses that that is a lifestyle they would like to have they would like to become a leader then they have to acknowledge that they will or Need to go through a transition when we're very very junior the only thing we have to do is be good at our jobs that's it right some people go get advanced degrees and how to do their jobs engineers or accountants and if you're good at your job they'll promote you and eventually you'll get promoted to a position where you're
now responsible for the people who do the job you used to do but nobody teaches us how to do that and we just expect them to be good At leadership right it's as if we put somebody in front of the Machine and demanded results but never showed them how to use the machine and so the reason we get managers the reason we get micromanagers the reason we get bad leaders is because nobody showed them how to do the job of leadership for one and two they can't help themselves of course they're gonna tell you to
do it their way because they actually do know how to do it better than you because That's what got them to the promotion in the first place and the transition we have to make is that we are no longer responsible for the job thank you as I said before we now become responsible for the people who are responsible for the job right there's not a manager around who's responsible for the results we're responsible for the people who are responsible for the results I love talking to CEOs and I'm like what's your Priority they say my
priority is my customer I'm like you don't talk to a customer in ten years you know you have no impact on a customer at all what you can do is screw with someone's life who will then impact your customer or support someone who will then impact your customer right leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the people who are responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer get that Chain right that is the chain of command get that chain right and every and everything goes just fine get that chain wrong
and then the people who are touching the customer inventing the product selling the product figuring out ways how to build the company manage the numbers manage the processes manage the operations in other words all the heavy lifting get that chain wrong and those people will spend more Protecting themselves from you than doing their job right any company for example where it is standard practice in that company for employees to feel the need to send a cya email after every decision they make is a sign that they're taking time and energy out of their job away
from advancing the company's mission in order to protect themselves from their own company that's what that is any company where it is standard Practice for people to feel the need to keep a folder of all the good things they've done in their careers just in case they need it you know is a sign that they're taking time and energy out of their day away from doing their job in order to protect themselves from their own leaders that's what that is those are signs of bad leadership politics gossip all of these things are people acting out
of self-interest that's what politics and gossip is right In well led organizations you tend to find very little politics and very little gossip because we're not competing at that level we're now working together to compete at a at a much higher level I'll tell you one quick story it's a true story that captures it's just so perfectly I was staying at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas which is a wonderful hotel and the service there is really great the reason it's such a great hotel is because of The people who work there and I had
an experience with a young man by the name of Noah and Noah's a barista in the coffee shop that they have just there in the lobby and I was buying a cup of coffee and Noah was charming and funny and engaging and I think I gave a hundred percent tip I think my five dollar coffee I think I gave a five dollar tip I mean this guy was great I mean I love talking to him he was a joy and I asked him do you like your job he Said to me I love my job
without skipping a beat and I asked what is it that the four seasons is doing that you love your job so much he says with again without skipping a beat he says throughout the day managers will walk past and ask how I'm doing and if there's anything that I need he said not just my manager any manager Wow he says I feel supported here he says quote I can be myself right then magic and then he says to me I also work at Caesar's Palace and there the managers go around to make sure that we're
doing everything right and catch us if we do something wrong he says when I go to work at Caesar's Palace I keep my head just under the radar because I don't want to get in trouble he said I just want to get through the day and make a paycheck all right same person right the experience that I have it the four seasons will be diametrically opposite to the experience that I have At Caesar's Palace not because of NOAA but because of NOAA's leadership right and the joke is if I were to go talk to the
managers over it Caesars Palace and say you know it's you they'll say but you don't understand we cannot get good work out of our peoples look look no matter how hard we try and how hard we push them they just don't so we either have to replace them a push them harder no we respond to the Environments we're in get the environment right you get the right behavior get the environment wrong you get the wrong behavior if that is what is happening it is because of leadership not because of the people yeah there was a
really famous cartoon back in the 80s the beatings will continue until the morale improves yeah yeah I always thought that was hilarious because it's so terrifyingly accurate and and astonishingly you look I'm embarrassed That I have a career you know I talk about things like trust and cooperation why is there demand for my work you know but the fact that there is I'll take it as an opportunity but what's really sort of abominable is that this is not a new idea like there are books galore and speeches galore and articles galore about what leadership is
you know and we all kind of say the same thing from a different angles you can pick your flavor whichever message resonates most With you and yet people don't do it what's the hang-up and so I get this question a lot which is what do you know what are the most important characteristics about being a leader you know vision charisma you know I know some spectacular leaders who don't have big Steve Jobs Ian's visions they're just not visionary you know and I know some spectacular leaders who really don't have a lot of charisma they kind
of just shuffle around and you're Like that's the guy that's the guy right and they're spectacular and people will give blood sweat and tears for these people the one thing I am comfortable saying that all effective leaders must have is courage because it is hard it is hard to stand up against outside pressure it is hard to stand up to an external constituency who's pushing you to do something for their short-term gain to do the right thing for your people it is hard it is a thankless it Is lonely it's sometimes sometimes you get fired
sometimes you get in trouble sometimes you'll lose your job and the next guy will get all the credit it's all true and the courage to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming pressure only the best leaders have that courage only the best leaders and here's the folly courage is not some deep internal fortitude you don't dig down deep and find the courage right it just doesn't exist Courage is external our courage comes from the support we feel from others in other words when someone when you feel that someone has your back when you
you know that the day that you admit you can't do it someone will be there and say I got you you can do this that's what gives you the courage to do the difficult thing it's not going off to an ashram by yourself somewhere for four weeks and coming back and finding the car it's not what happens it's the Relationships that we foster it's the people around us who love us and care about us and believe in us and when we have those relationships we will find the courage to do the right thing and when
you act with courage that in turn will inspire those in your organization to also act with courage in other words it's still an external thing that's what inspiration is right I'm inspired to follow your example but those relationships that we foster over the Course of a lifetime will not only make us into the leaders we need to be in and hope we can be but they'll often save your life they'll save you from depression they'll save you from giving up they'll save you from any matter of you know negative feelings about your own capabilities your
own future when someone just says I love you and I will follow you no matter what why do you so I want to talk about that for a second why do you think that something So innate so deeply ingrained in us as love is so like just yesterday I can't believe this is true this is actually true I'm not making this up just yesterday so means something to you guys I'd looked Ron Penna in his eyes and I said I love you and I said it like a hundred percentage of my business partner I said
it a hundred percent sincerely it was just one of those moments where you want to you want to connect and remember but that's so weird Like I don't do that often and it's so interesting that it becomes out of context dirty is the best way to say it because like at home with my wife it's so easy and I'd love to embody and I love to feel it it makes me feel awesome but then I come into the office and there's something about the context that makes it weird yes two perspectives one is this is
what vulnerability is right being vulnerable doesn't mean crying being vulnerable means willing to admit You made a mistake being vulnerable is the willingness to say I need help being vulnerable is the willingness to express the feelings you have towards someone without fear of what other people may think of you by making that expression and most people especially if they don't have a trusting environment or a strong corporate culture most people don't want to feel vulnerable it's dangerous to feel vulnerable if you Admit you made a mistake but you don't know what you're doing you've been
promoted into a job that you have no clue or no business being in that job lying hiding and faking is a much better option right but for the fact that it's more stressful and ultimately the results will falter right it's it's counterintuitive but that's what that's what a strong environment means it means I can be vulnerable so the fact that you can say that out loud Means that there's a loving trusting culture here that is okay with you being vulnerable nobody's thinking oh my god this company's going downhill this guy's nuts he's you know he's
blubbering all over the place you know that's not what people are think I mean some people probably thinking but generally that's not what people are thinking if anything people are going cool and that then inspires them to feel that they can also express vulnerability Like admitted mistake like say they screwed up like say they need help let's say you know they want to offer help to someone and not fear that either so that's that's one perspective the other the other reason why stuff that I talked about or that you're talking about now is so often
ignored is just because it's hard to measure you know how do you measure leadership any measure gonna be one of my questions how do you measure how do you measure trust you know they Lack good metrics it's very easy to measure revenues and profits and market share so let's focus on those things cuz I can I can like pull a lever here and see what happens over there right but in terms of like trust I'll pull the lever here and I won't see anything for six months so it's not that I don't know that it
exists everybody talks about the importance of culture it nobody seems to be focused on building it I've never met a CEO in my in my life who doesn't think People are important and yet every day they're making decisions that prioritize a number over a person yeah that literally don't care about people they make decisions that literally rush people aside because it's hard to measure in an ultra speedy you know algorithmic world that we live in what gets measured gets done these things are measurable just not in the short-term yeah who's gonna ask because when you
talk about making this a movement which Is really exciting to them there's this crusader or out there who is incredibly effective at communicating this stuff and getting people excited about it and actually taking things from the ephemeral and making it very tangible do you think that's a question you're gonna have to answer at some point let's show people how we metrics are fine the metrics are fine they're just not in the short-term and they're just not fixed entire there so for example do you love Your wife yes right prove it like what's the metric give
me the number that helps me know right because when you met her you didn't love her right now you love her right tell me the day the love happened it's an impossible question right but it's not that it doesn't exist it's that it's much easier to prove over time right so all leadership is the same thing it's about transitions so if you were to if You were to go to the gym right sit like exercise right if you go to the gym and you work out and you come back and you look in the mirror
you will see nothing and if you go to the gym the next day and you come back and you look in the mirror you will see nothing right so clearly there's no results can't be measured it must not be effective so we quit right or if you fundamentally believe that this is the right course of action and you stick with it like in a Relationship I bought her flowers and I wished her happy birthday and she doesn't love me clearly I'll give up you know that's not what happens if you if you believe there's something
there you commit yourself to act an act of service you commit yourself to the regime the exercise you couldn't screw it up you can eat chocolate cake one day you can skip a skip a day or two you know you it allows for that but if you stick with it Consistently I'm not exactly sure what day but I know you'll start getting into shape I know it and the same with the relationship it's not about the events it's not about intensity it's about consistency right you go to the dentist twice a year your teeth will
fall out you have to brush your teeth every day for two minutes what is brushing your day twice a day for two minutes do nothing unless you do it every day twice a day for two minutes right it's the Consistency going to the gym for nine hours does not get you into shape working out every day for 20 minutes gets you into shape so the problem is we treat leadership with intensity we have a two-day off-site we would invite a bunch of speakers we give everybody certificate you're a leader right those things are like going
to the dentist they're very important that good for reminding us or getting us back on track learning new lessons but it's the Daily practice of all the monotonous little boring things like brushing your teeth that matter the most she didn't fall in love with you because you remembered her birthday and bought her flowers and Valentine's Day she fell in love with you because when you woke up in the morning you said good morning to her before you checked your phone she fell in love with you because when you went to the fridge to get yourself
a drink You got her one without even asking she fell in love with you because when you had an amazing day at work and she came home and she had a terrible day at work you didn't say yeah yeah but let me tell you about my day you sat and listened to her awful day and you didn't say a thing about your amazing day this is why she fell in love with you I can't tell you exactly what day and it was no specular thing you did it was the accumulation of all of those little
things that she woke Up one days and it's as if she pressed a button she goes I love him right leadership is exactly the same there's no event there's no thing I can tell you you have to do that your people will trust you it just doesn't work that way it's then it's an accumulation of lots and lots of little things that anyone by themselves is innocuous and useless literally pointless by themselves people will look at little things that are good leadership practice and say that won't Work and you're absolutely right but if you do
it consistently and you do it in combination with lots of other little things like saying good morning to someone that looking in the eye my friend George who's a three-star general in the Marine Corps he says his test for leadership and I love this he goes his test really a good leaders if you ask somebody how their day is going you actually care about the answer and the number of times were Walking to a meeting we're rushing we go how are you not good I got to get to you later I got him late for
a meeting if you ask the question you were standing there and you're listening to the answer it's those little innocuous things that you do over and over and over and over that people will say I love my job not I like my job I like my job means yeah the challenge is great they pay me well I like the people I love my job means I don't want to work anywhere else I don't Care how much somebody else will is willing to pay me I'm devoted to the people here and I cared desperately about the
people here as if they were my family in business we have colleagues and co-workers in the military they have brothers and sisters that's how they think of each other right if you really have a strong corporate culture the people will think of each other like brothers and sisters don't really it's like a family right no Brothers and sisters deep love fight but the love doesn't go away right bicker the love doesn't go away and I'll fight with my sister but if you threaten my sister you're gonna have to deal with me right right we'll fight
internally we'll bicker with each other but nobody's gonna hurt each other and if anything from the outside shows up you got it you're looking at a unified front brothers and sisters now how do you create brothers and sisters out of Strangers common beliefs common values you know parents in other words executives who care about their children's success who care to raise their children teach them skills discipline them when necessary help them build their self-confidence so that they couldn't go on and achieve something more than you could have ever imagined achieving for yourself that's leadership an
absolute love and devotion for the people who've committed their lives to This enterprise that's such a brilliant reframe it's so simple and so beautiful and and unbelievably hard work it is and it isn't here's here's why it is you said it it's hard to measure right it's hard for me to show hard to measure in the short term it's very easy to measure in the long term over the long term the traditional metrics will go up all your revenues profits market share the traditional metrics will go up and more Importantly they'll go up more stable
right you will be able to weather hard times better because the people will come together they won't abandon ship right in the over the long term the traditional metrics are just fine but also over the long term your churn will go down right you won't be going through employees as much right over the long term you'll find that loyalty is much higher that people will turn down better paying jobs right over the long term all The tradition metrics are just fine and then some it's only the short-term that it's hard to measure yeah I'm gonna
say though there's something in between those two in the middle - no because with working out so to use your analogy if you had to go to the gym for six months before you saw any sign of change no one would do it right and there are so many variables and working out the number one thing is to know who to listen to the number one Thing is to know what to look for right so if you don't experience muscle fatigue you're probably doing something different that's a media right I know that the next day
if you experience muscle fatigue and don't notice any change within a few weeks you're probably not eating right so there really are things that you can look at cuz you're doing the damage to the muscle but you're not giving your body the nutrients that you need to a shot Well that's that's that's still true so I'm I'm sitting here think you kind of really be as simple as like I have a growing belief that part of what you could write down as a leaders job is to connect now how do we connect you've given some
very simple examples and they're all incredibly real asking somebody how their day is and actually waiting to hear the answer and caring about what the answer is time spent together right I couldn't have a very Effective relationship with my wife if there actually isn't time together and one of the things that that I have personally struggled with is as the organization has grown just time with any individual becomes more and more difficult and so then you start focusing on okay wait it's just about creating the environment but as you lose touch with the real sense
of like I know this person and I can see when they're having a bad day and really leveraging like What we have as humans and this is why your teachings are so powerful is you you wrap it in the truth of the human experience you wrap it in how humans really connect like looking at each other sensing that like hey this is either hitting or it's not like all of that stuff is super super real and as an organization to be able to find ways in that middle ground where it's like I'm pretty sure this
is working and I really believe in it at a macro level but I Just want to know because there's so many paths right and you could nudge sort of one way or the other to create something that and maybe it's as simple as here's what I'm using this right now the amount of laughter I hear in the office maybe that's dumb I don't know but I'm really doing it and I really think all day like how much laughter have I heard today and I feel like when everyone is making and really taking an effort to
Connect with each other to provide empathy and all that there's a lowering of people's defenses and just a sort of natural outpouring of that is is joking around and so you hear this laughter bubble and when things get really tense and stressful I literally feel like you could have a decibel meter and just feel it coming down I mean look it's it's a human it's a human thing so just as you know how your body feels after a good workout you know how your body feels After a big greasy meal you know you you know
that one is good for you and one is not you know despite what it may taste like and that's the problem with short-term gains right they feel really good in the short term so it's it's we're highly highly highly trained social animals we're highly adapted social animals you know we we can feel social awkwardness and we can feel when things are going well you know you can sense it you say you have this sense of Laughter you know around the office like we're not we're not we don't walk on with blinders but you know we're
like I said we're made to do this you know that's why we can assess if somebody's trustworthy or not you know puts why we keep our walls and oh my god yeah yeah his results are great but I wouldn't trust him right you know as opposed to letting on you but like I trust her for anything I trust her with my kids my money anything you know so so we're Highly attuned animals and so we're good at sensing it but I will say there is a caveat to to Europe to your metric of laughter which
is a decent one is that scale breaks things right in human beings as I said before we're not made for populations bigger than about 150 ish it's called Dunbar's number Robin Dunbar professor from Cambridge University theorized that we cannot maintain more than 100 and about about 150 close Relationships and the way he defined a close relationship is if you're at a bar with a bunch of friends and somebody comes in would you ask that person to join you or not and we it's about a hundred and fifty that we wouldn't ask them to come join
us and if you think about the reason that actually makes perfect sense which is there's two limiting factors one is time if you only gave two minutes to every person you know you'd make no close friends and the Other one is memory you just can't remember everybody and so this is where leadership leadership becomes very interesting because if you have a company that has a lot of people five six seven eight hundred people a thousand two thousand five thousand people clearly you can't know everyone and clearly as a CEO look I care about every single
of my people you don't even know some of the people you work for a real but we work for your bastards you Don't care about that right so it's a nuns it's a nonsense statement right right but what you can say is I desperately care about the people whose names I know and whose faces I recognize and I care desperately about my leadership and I instill in them every day that I will give them the tools and I will take care of them with one purpose of one purpose only that they will take care of
the people in their charge and I want those people to take Care of the people and instill in them that they take care of the people in their charge and then by the time you get down to the masses where the actual thousand exist because of the seniors it's like 20 sure right where the real thousand exist they feel about a hundred and a hundred and fifty of them can look to one of their direct leaders to one of their direct managers and say that person cares about me mm-hmm that's our boss that's my boss
that's my leader not The leader it's the CEO that's my manager my boss my leader and by the way I hate the word boss and manager nobody wakes up in the morning to be managed nobody wants to be managed manage me right but we do want to be led I do want to be wait woke up wake up in the morning and I want to be led lead me absolutely absolutely lead me right if you have the courage you can leave me right and I will follow you so when scale shows up you actually still
Maintain the rules of Dunbar's number but now they're done and that's what effective hierarchy looks like where every level feels supported by the level above to take care of the level below and then if you're at the frontline you feel supported by the level above and the level below as the customer or the vendor that you own that relationship in other words we're all responsible for taking care of another relationship because someone's taking care of us yeah You've talked super powerfully about that that like an alcoholic if you don't master the step of helping somebody
else beat the zees that you never really fully beat it yourself and yet the parallel between being leader requires the same thing you taking ownership for helping somebody else be successful and building trust through that yeah the example you're using there is that the 12-step program we all joke about the first step Admitting you have a problem but it's the twelfth step that matters if if an alcoholic masters all 11 steps and not the twelfth it's highly likely they'll drink again if they master the twelfth step they're much more likely to overcome the disease the
twelfth step is the commitment to help another alcoholic right it's service and this really is the most powerful thing in the world which is it's not about us it's about others you know there's an entire Section of the book shop called self-help there's no section in the book shop called help others right and it's not about how can I lose ten pounds how can I find the job that I love how can I find the love of my life you know no no it's not how can I lose ten pounds it's how can I help
somebody I care about live a healthy lifestyle it's not how can I find the job that I love it's how can I help somebody I care about find a lifetime of joy in their work It's not how can I find true love it's how can I help my friends settle down and live the life they want to live and ironically if we set out to help people solve the problems that we struggled with our saw that we struggle with ourselves that in turn is what teaches us the solutions yeah that's that's incredible and the thing
that really is this this is so important to me is the human desire for connection is so strong and we sort of check that at the door When you come into an office and yet you're giving so much of your time to the office that the you've said that you know loving your job is a right it's not I don't I used to have my privilege yeah I believe that I believe loving your work is a right and not a privilege I despise the fact lament the fact I curse the fact that so few people
get to say I love my job as if they've won some lottery you know you go out with your friends and somebody says I love my job And everybody's my god you're so lucky right that to me is madness everybody the vast majority should get to wake up and say I love my job it is a right it is a god-given right that we should love where we work and we should demand it we should demand that our leaders provide an environment in which we want to come where we want to care about each other
where we feel safe to express our vulnerabilities and our fears and our Concerns that we're open to correction and discipline and feedback that we're not defensive because we know that it's being given to help us improve and grow and we want to improve and grow and in turn we will help others improve and grow because when we feel safe when we feel that our leaders care more about us than a number they care more about our lives and our confidence and our joy in our skillset more than some short-term game that they care more about
our Priorities than the priorities of some disinterested external constituency then we will respond in kind and we will offer our blood and our sweat and our tears and we will make sacrifices of all kinds to see that our leaders vision is advanced and that this company continues to thrive not for them for ourselves it becomes a deeply personal and becoming something we love contributing to I talk about it all the time working hard for something we don't care about is called Stress working hard for something we love is called passion and I'm tired of listening
to see using we only hire a passion of people know what that means how do you know that they're passionate for interviewing and not passionate for working you know every person on the planet has passion right we just don't all have passion for the same things give me something to believe in give me something to believe in give me the opportunity to contribute to Something allow me to make mistakes and try again and you'll have passion up the wazoo but Noah Noah only has passion in one of his jobs he is stress and the other
one of his jobs same guy same guy different leadership that rings so true with what I know about human nature the first time I heard you talk about this it's just one of those things that whenever something lines up with what I know to be true about the way that the human mind works it's like okay now I Know that I'm really under something and when you have told stories of companies that have weathered storms and how that trust goes both ways and when people feel looked after it makes a lot of sense and then
too I had never heard prior to you that the the way the business has evolved was a theory that was laid out you know only 30 40 years ago max and I can really feel a change that's happening in the world now and it's such a cool time to be involved in A rapidly growing company that has a huge portion of young people in the company because the demand that you're saying that people need to to be made there's there's something in the youth today that allows them to cry for their humanity and I don't
know if they yet know the words that you're giving them but you nodded your head in a way I want to hear what you're thinking I have yet to give a speech or have a meeting where somebody doesn't ask me the Millenial Question what's the millennial question apparently Millennials as a generation which is a group of people who were born approximately 1984 and after are tough to manage and they're accused of being entitled and narcissistic and self-interested unfocused lazy but entitled is the big one and and because they confound leadership so much what's happening as
leaders are asking the Millennials what do you want and Millennials are saying we want to work In a place with purpose love that we want to make an impact you know whatever that means we want free food and bean bags and so somebody articulates some sort of purpose there's lots of free food and there's bean bags and yet for some reason they are still not happy and that's because you that they're missing there's a there's a missing piece what I've learned is that there I can break it down into four pieces right there are four
four things four characteristics One is parenting the other one is technology third is impatience and the fourth is environment the generation that we call the Millennials too many of them grew up subject to not my words failed parenting strategies you know where for example they were told that they were special all the time they were told that they have anything they want in life just cuz they want it they were told some of them got into honors classes not Because they deserved it but because their parents complained and some of them got a is not
because they earned them but because the teachers didn't want to do with the parents some kids got participation medals you got a medal for coming in last right which the science we know is pretty clear which is it devalues the metal and the reward for those who actually work hard and it actually makes the person who comes in last feel embarrassed because they know They didn't deserve it so doctor makes them feel worse right so you take this group of people and they graduate school and they get a job and they're thrust into an it
into the real world and in an instant they find out they're not special they're moms can't get them a promotion that you get nothing for coming in last and by the way you can't just have it cuz you want it right and in an instant their entire self-image is shattered and so you have an entire Generation that's growing up with lower self esteem than previous generations the other problem too compounded is we're growing up in a facebook Instagram world in other words we're good at putting filters on things we're good at showing people that life
is amazing even though I'm depressed right and so everybody sounds tough and everybody sounds like they got it all figure it out and the reality is there's very little toughness and most people don't Have it figured out and so when the more senior people say well what we do they sound like this is what you got to do and they have no clue so you have an entire generation growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations right through no fault of their own through no fault of their own right they were dealt a bad hand
right now let's add in technology we know that engagement with social media and our cell phones releases a chemical called Dopamine that's why when you get a text feels good all right so you know we've all had it we you're feeling a little bit down or feeling a bit lonely and so you send out ten texts to ten friends you know hi hi hi hi hi cuz it feels good when you get a response right right it's why we count the likes it's why we go back ten times to see if and if it's going
if our mints and my Instagram is growing slower I would I do something wrong do they not like me anymore right The trauma for young kids to be unfriended right because we know when you get it you get a hit a dopamine which feels good it's why we like it it's why we keep going back to it dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes us feel good when we smoke when we drink and when we gamble in other words it's highly highly addictive right we have age restrictions on smoking gambling and alcohol and we
have no age restrictions and social media and cell Phones which is the equivalent of opening up the liquor cabinet and saying to our teenagers hey by the way this adolescence thing if it gets you down but that's basically what's happening that's basically what's happening right that's basically what happened you have an entire generation that has access to an addictive numbing to chemical called dopamine through social media and cellphones as they're going through the high stress of adolescence why is this Important almost every alcoholic discovered alcohol when they were teenagers when we're very very young the
only approval we need is the approval of our parents and as we go through adolescence we make this transition where we now need the approval of our peers very frustrating for our parents very important for us that allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the broader tribe right it's a highly highly stressful and Anxious period of our lives and we're supposed to learn to rely on our friends some people quite by accident discover alcohol and numbing effects of dopamine help them cope with the stresses and anxieties of adolescence unfortunately that becomes hardwired
in their brains and for the rest of their lives when they suffer significant stress they will not turn to a person they will turn to the bottle social stress financial stress career stress that's pretty much The primary reasons why an alcoholic drinks right what's happening is because we're allowing unfettered access to these dopamine producing devices and media basically it's becoming hardwired in what we're seeing is as they grow older they to many kids don't know how to form deep meaningful relationships their words not mine they will admit that many of their friendships are superficial they
will admit that their friends that they don't Count on their friends they don't rely on their friends they have fun with their friends but they also know that their friends will cancel out them that something better comes along deep meaningful relationships are not there because they never practice the skill set and worse they don't have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress so when significant stress starts to show up in their lives they're not turning to a person they're turning to a device They're turning to social media they're turning to these things which offer temporary
relief we know the science is clear we know that people who spend more time on Facebook so far higher rates of depression than people who spend less time on Facebook write these things balanced alcohol is not bad too much alcohol is bad gambling is fun too much gambling is dangerous right there's nothing wrong with social media and cell phones it's the imbalance right if You're sitting at dinner with your friends and you're texting somebody who's not there that's a problem that's an addiction if you're sitting in a meeting with people you're supposed to be listening
to and speaking and you put your phone on the table face up or face down I don't care that sends the subconscious message to the room and you're not just you're just not that important to me right now right that's what happens and the fact that you Cannot put it away it's because you are addicted right if you wake up and you check your phone before you say good morning to your girlfriend boyfriend or spouse you have an addiction and like all addiction in time it'll destroy relationships it'll cost time and it'll cost money and
it'll make your life worse right so you have a generation growing up with lower self-esteem that doesn't have the coping mechanisms to do with stress stress right now you add in The sense of impatience right they've grown up in a world instant gratification you want to buy something you go on Amazon it arrives the next day you want to watch a movie log on and watch your movie you don't check movie times you want to watch your TV show binge you don't even have to wait week to week to week right I know people who
skip seasons just so they can binge at the end of the season right Instagram if occasion you want to Go on a date you don't even have to learn how to be like you don't even have to learn and practice that skill you don't have to be the uncomfortable into which this is yes when you mean no one says no when you mean no but yes when you you have to swipe right Bing I'm a stud right you don't have to learn the social coping mechanisms right everything you want you can have instantaneously everything you
want instant gratification except job Satisfaction and strength of relationships there ain't no app for that they are slow meandering uncomfortable messy processes and so I keep meeting these wonderful fantastic idealistic hard-working smart kids they've just graduated school they're in their entry-level job I sit down with them when I go how's it going they go I think I'm gonna quit I'm like why they're like I'm not making an impact I'm like you've Been here eight months it's as if they're standing at the foot of a mountain and they have this abstract concept called impact that they
want to have in the world which is the summit what they don't see is the mountain I don't care if you go up the mountain quickly or slowly but there's still a mountain and so what this young generation needs to learn is patience that some things that really really matter like love or job fulfillment joy Love of life self-confidence a skill set any of these things all of these things take time sometimes you can expedite pieces of it but the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult and if you don't ask for help and
learn that skill set you will fall off the mountain or you will the worst case scenario the worst case scenario and we're already seeing it the worst case scenario is we're seeing increase in suicide rates we're seeing An increase in this generation which increase in accidental deaths due to drug overdoses we're seeing more and more kids drop out of school or take leaves of absence due to depression unheard of these are this is this is really bad the best-case scenario the bet those are all bad cases right the best case scenario is you'll have an
entire population growing up and going through life and just never really Finding joy it'll never really find deep deep fulfillment in work or in life they'll just just walk through life and it'll GE just it's fine how's your job it's fine you know same as yesterday how's your relationship it's fine like that's that's the best-case scenario which leads me to the the fourth point which is environment which is we're taking this amazing group of young fantastic Kids would just dealt a bad hand it's no fault of their own and we put them in corporate environments
that care more about the numbers and they do about the kids they care more about the short-term gains than the long-term life of this young human being we care more about the year than the lifetime right and so we are putting them in corporate environments that aren't helping them build their confidence that aren't helping them learn the skills of Cooperation that aren't helping them overcome the challenges of a digital world and finding more balance that isn't helping them overcome the need to have instant gratification and teach them the joys and impact and the fulfillment you
get from working hard over on something for a long time that cannot be done in a month or even in a year and so with thrusting to them them in corporate environments and the worst part about it is they think it's them They blame themselves they can't they think it's them who can't deal and so it makes it all worse it's not I'm here to tell them it's not them it's the corporation's it's the corporate environments it's the total lack of good leadership in our world today that is making them feel the way they do
they were dealt a bad hand heads and I hate to say but it's the company's responsibility sucks to be you like we have no choice Right this is what we got and I wish that society and their parents did a better job they didn't so we're gonna we're getting them in our companies and we now have to pick up the slack we have work extra hard to figure out the ways that we build their confidence we have to work extra hard to find ways to teach them social the social skills that they're missing out on
there should be no cell phones and conference rooms none zero and I don't Mean the kind of like sitting outside waiting to text I mean like when you're sitting and waiting for a meeting to start nobody go this is what we all do we all sit here and wait for the meeting to start meaning starting okay when we start the meeting no that's not how relationships are formed remember we talked about it's the little things relationships are formed this way we're waiting for a meeting to start we go how's your dad I heard he was
in Hospital oh he's really good thanks for asking he's actually iHome though oh I'm really glad that was really amazing I know it was really scary for that's how you form relationships hey did you ever get that report on oh my god no I didn't I'll help you out I totally uh can I help you out with that really that's how trust forms trust doesn't form at an event in a day even bad times don't form trust immediately it's the slow steady consistency and we Have to create mechanisms where we allow for those little innocuous
interactions to happen but when we allow cell phones and conference rooms we just okay I have the meeting and then my favorite is like when there's a cell phone there and you go like this you go it rings and go I'm not gonna answer that mr. magnanimous you know when you're out for dinner with your friends like I I do this with my friends when we're going out for dinner and We're leaving together we'll leave our cell phones at home who are we calling maybe one of us will bring a phone in case we need
to call an uber or take a picture of our meal I'm not I'm an idealist but I'm not insane I mean it looked really good we'll take one phone and so it's like an alcoholic the reason you take the alcohol out of the house this week is because we cannot trust our willpower we're just not strong enough but when You remove the temptation it actually makes it a lot easier and so when you just say don't check your phone people literally will go like this and somebody would go to the bathroom and what's the first
thing we do because I wouldn't want to look around the restaurant for a minute and a half you know but if you don't have the phone you just kind of enjoy the world and that's where ideas happen the constant constant constant engagement is not where you have Innovation and ideas ideas happen when our minds wandering we go and you see something uh I think they could do that that's called innovation right but we're taking away all those little moments right you should not and none of us none of us should charge our phones by our
beds we should be charging our phones in the living rooms right remove the temptation you wake up in the middle of night cuz you can't sleep you won't check your phone which makes it worse But if it's in the living room it's relaxed it's fine oh yeah but it's my alarm clock by an alarm clock they cost eight dollars I'll buy you in a while right but the point is the point is is we now in industry whether we like it or not we don't get a choice we now have a responsibility to make up
the shortfall and to help this amazing idealistic fantastic generation build their Confidence learn patience learn the social skills find a better balance between life and technology because quite frankly it's it's the right thing to do thank you my pleasure coming on well thanks for having me thank you for coming incredible absolutely amazing where can they find you so ironic isn't it well you can find in social media when you're not in the meeting so so so yeah I'm in all the usual places But um but I will tell you one thing so I have a
new book coming out in in September this is it's it's a thinly veiled plug but the what's made them very happy but what's special about it is I wanted to produce something that that no digital format could reproduce and so it's an illustrated quote book it's it's beautifully illustrated I was very sort of pushy about this that I didn't want the illustrations done on a computer they were done by hand There's a song Aloe Blacc the singer the grammy-nominated singer the book is called together is better and gave me a song that goes with it
and it's the music is at the back of the book and it's actually the lyrics are in his handwriting actually his handwriting and and here's the best part the book is scented we scented it with a custom scent made by this amazing company called 1229 and they designed for me the scent of optimism so you smell the pages And they smell like optimism and the thing that I love about this is I can't do that in any a book format hmm I wanted to create something that you had to physically engage with and it's designed
to be given as a gift the first page says - from because I wanted it to be given as a gift to someone you want to say thank you for inspiring you or to give to someone you wanted to inspire it was designed to promote this physical interaction and engaging with the real World so I'm really proud of it it's incredible man super unique yeah it's fun I hope it does smashingly well as your other books have and have given so much to people and it's just really really been incredible and what you shared with
us today meant honestly thank you absolutely one appreciate it and thank you very much thank you I should have done the entire interview at his feet which is exactly how it felt he has an amazing Twitter quote which I'm gonna paraphrase but leaders are learners and the people who stop pretending like they know everything and really open themselves up to knowledge are the ones that go farther ahead needless to say was much shorter than that since it was 140 characters but that that's the idea and when I encountered Simon for the first time it was
with that enthusiasm of being opened up to learning something new to changing everything to build something that is Better knowing why you're doing what you're doing is so critical and just the human way in which he approaches the world and the connection and hearing that today in front of this audience and seeing everybody in rapt attention and talking about putting the cellphones aside and really remembering to connect I think that is just incredibly incredibly important so Simon thank you against pleasure sharing with [Music] To the inside quest community thank you guys for becoming so special
that we're able to get guests like Simon the first thing he said to me today was hey we finally made this happen not for a want of trying so in your name we went after him for a very long time because what he is is just absolutely incredible thank you guys so much for joining us as weekly so be sure to subscribe and until next week my friends be legendary Take care [Applause] [Music]
